Britain

Boris Johnson,
Mayor of London, was the man who didn’t let the buses go out during the snow in
London on Monday 2nd February because he thought it was dangerous.

So how did he
expect people to get in to work? Now he’s docking transport staff a day’s pay for
not making it in. The managers who are making the threat are claiming that they
were ‘working from home.’ So they get their money.

David
Blunkett has been rapped over the knuckles by the Parliamentary Commissioner
for Standards. Apparently the former Minister ‘forgot’ to register a trip to
South Africa paid for by a private training company.

Blunkett,
as a former Minister in charge of the Department for Work and pensions, was a
big fan of opening up the administration of the welfare service to the private
sector. No wonder. Sheffield-based firm A4e is bidding for a whole raft of
multi-million pound contracts under New Labour’s misnamed welfare reform
programme. And they find Blunkett’s services well worth purchasing.

In these recessionary times the fear of a
future with no income amongst redundant workers is persuading some to part with
all their cash in return for future wealth and riches – only to find themselves
bankrupt and maybe homeless.  This is a legal form of
ripping you off, with the rise of the some of the worst kind of leeches to prey
on the real victims of the economic downturn.  This cost me and by wife £50,000, and hundreds
of other hard working people have lost tens of thousands of pounds to this form
of legalised extortion.

Campaigners to keep Tyne and Wear
Metro, Britain’s best-performing railway, in the public sector, have condemned
the publication of a list of ‘approved bidders’ that brings the network’s
operations a step closer to privatisation. Around 250 RMT members employed by the
Tyne and Wear passenger transport executive Nexus are to be balloted for strike action over the threat
to jobs and conditions posed by moves to privatise the network’s operations.

Public transport in London, that kept going throughout the blitz, pathetically
came to a halt on Monday February 2nd because of a few inches of
snow – or rather because of cost-cutting by private firms keener to make a fast
buck than to provide a decent service to Londoners. The whole public transport
system, rail and buses alike, is privately owned and run for profit. Staff did
their best to keep the service going, but they weren’t helped by management
cheese-paring. As far as they are concerned, workers are just a cost that needs
cutting back.

The
events of the past year or so, financial meltdown, political instability,
uncertainty over jobs and the threat that many workers could lose their homes
represents a huge shift in society, both internationally and especially in
Britain where the effects of the “credit crunch” have been particularly acute.
In the context of such a deep crisis the halcyon days of the “feel good factor”
and the “15 years of unbroken economic growth”, seem like ancient history.

Whose fault is it that nearly 30,000 workers have lost their jobs
with the closure of all the Woolworths stores? Not the workers, that’s for
sure. We are due to see an avalanche of job losses after Christmas. Unemployment
is nearly 2 million already, and due to hit 3 million in 12 months’ time. None
of these workers deserve to lose their jobs. They are the victims of a
capitalist system that is just not working. How can we make things better? If
we fight for work or full pay, the bosses would soon find them something to do.

In 1848 The Communist Manifesto opened with the line, "A spectre is
haunting Europe – the spectre of communism. " The spectre of Marx haunts
world capitalism still.The years of steadily rising living standards, of relatively full employment
have gone, never to return. This year, and for years to come, workers look with
trepidation at their future. Will they have a job? Will they still have a roof
over their heads?