Britain

The phone-hacking scandal that has led to the closure of the News of the
World newspaper has brought to the surface the real state of things
within the British         establishment. The rottenness of a regime,
that prides  itself at being a model of “democracy,” is now out in the
open for all to see. What has now been revealed is that a powerful media
empire that for years has played a key role in British politics, making
and unmaking political leaders, has been buying police officers, using
influence with politicians, and all this peppered with out and out
criminal activity.

For all of us working at Lloyds, the announcement that the bosses would
be throwing 15,000 (or 14% of the 104,000 strong work force) people onto
the street came not from our employer but from the press release that
was made to appease the stock markets – they were only too happy to hear
we’d be bearing the brunt of the effort, as ever, to drag Lloyds out of
the mess the bosses got it into in the first place.

The phone-hacking scandal that has rocked the British establishment in the past week is not only bad news for Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World and its parents NewsCorp and News International,
who have now had to sacrifice their main paper, it is bad news for the
politicians, the police and the capitalist class as a whole.

Over
the recent period, splits and divisions have opened up within sections of the
ruling class, which reflect a deepening unease over the crisis and the effects it
is having on British society. The
outspoken attack in the New Statesmen on the Coalition government by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan
Williams, was an indication in some quarters of the effects of the austerity
programme.

Listeners to ‘File on 4’ on BBC Radio 4 last month would have got an
inkling of the vast river of money that is currently leaving the NHS and
going directly into the coffers of big business.

Pay more! Work longer! Get less! This is the stark and
uncompromising message on pensions that the Tory- dominated government is
sending to millions of working class people. In the public sector, six million
state employees will find that the expected reward of a half-decent pension in
exchange for low wages during their working life is now being taken away.

Cameron and Osborne appear oblivious to the crisis unfolding in front of
their very noses. While standing on the edge of a precipice, they are
busy reassuring everyone that Britain has nothing to fear from the
European financial crisis. They are the modern equivalent of the emperor
Nero, who fiddled while Rome burnt. British banks, they say, are sound
and with enough capital to insulate themselves against a sovereign debt
crisis across the Channel.

As the flames of economic crisis spread across Europe, it is essential
public services such as fire and rescue  that are now being cut as a
result. All 49 fire services across Britain have seen their funding from
the government reduced by 25% as part of the Tory-led Coalition’s
programme of austerity. Despite already having one of the most efficient
and affordable fire services in the country, Cambridgeshire is seeing
huge attacks on its fire and rescue services.

Socialist Appeal notes with sadness the untimely deaths of Andy Viner and Brian Haw at the weekend and sends condolences to their families and friends and the many people who knew them. Here we pay tribute to them and the role they played.