This is the front cover statement from the next issue of Socialist Appeal
Tens of thousands demonstrated throughout the country as the government finally presented its ruthless spending review. After many months of guesswork, now we know the facts – and they are every bit as bad as many expected. This coalition of millionaires is set on forcing working people to pay the bill for the bailouts to the bankers and their rotten system.
The facts are devastating. Even the official treasury review had to admit that the poorest 10% of the British population will be hardest hit. To talk of these cuts being fair is nothing short of a sickening lie from the coalition. £7 billion in welfare cuts were announced, in addition to the £11 billion presented in the summer. The attack on benefits will be the most vicious in living memory as the worse-off and most vulnerable are asked to help pay for the greed of capitalism. The virtual massacre of social housing will force many onto the streets or into substandard accommodation.
Half a million public sector jobs are to be axed by 2015 with the roll-on affect of the spending cuts in the private sector pushing up the jobs lost figure to over one million. Funding to local councils will be cut by 25% over the same four-year period. University students will see their fees (and the resulting debt they are saddled with) shoot up.
Public sector workers who still have jobs will be forced to pay 3% more in pension contributions on top of a pay freeze. Ultimately all workers will be forced to work longer before they can retire – a double whammy since you pay more in contributions and get less time to ‘enjoy’ your pension after retiring.
These attacks will be far worse than anything dreamt of by the likes of Thatcher and Tebbit in the 1980s. Even the promise that the health service and education will be left untouched is not true.
The Tories and their rich chums in the City of London have claimed that these cuts are necessary because the welfare state is consuming too much money. We say, quite the reverse. It is capitalism which is burning up too much of our money.
When trade unionists turned up to lobby their MPs the day before the spending review announcement, those wanting to see Tory members were turned away from Westminster as evidently they were all “unavailable.” Well, they can run but they can’t hide. A mass mobilisation needs to be started to build up opposition to these cuts. The anti-poll tax movement of twenty years ago shows that the government can be defeated if a serious and effective struggle is mounted. The TUC must turn their words into action and take a lead in bringing the full might of the trade union movement to bear, in a campaign which echoes that being carried out by workers in France and Greece. They have shown the way. The movement should not shy away from taking industrial action in support of the fight and a call for a 24-hour general strike could play a central role in showing this government that we mean business. Whatever the outcome of this struggle, only the booting out of this government and the capitalist system they represent can provide a solution to the ongoing nightmare of class rule. We need a socialist society committed to the needs of the many and that is what we should be fighting for.
