On 7 February, on the eve of the expected launch of Labour’s election manifesto, a headline in the Financial Times read: “Mandates are overrated – Keir Starmer just needs the win.”
This says it all. A Starmer government will not be popular with the working class, nor with anyone wanting an end to the genocide in Gaza. But none of that matters to the establishment. All they care about is that their champion – Sir Kid Starver – enters Downing Street.
And with the Tories tearing themselves to pieces, the elites have good reason to be counting their chickens. As it stands, their man Starmer is set to win the next election by default.
Ditched
In place of any major policy announcements, potential Labour voters have been treated to yet another U-turn by Starmer.
Under pressure from the Tories, the Labour leader has revealed that he will be abandoning his £28bn green investment pledge, with additional spending now expected to be just £4.7 billion per year.
This follows on from other ditched proposals, including previous promises to abolish tuition fees, scrap the House of Lords, and bring in a national care service.
The party’s stripped back ‘Green Prosperity Plan’, outlined on Twitter (or ‘X’) in a thread emblazoned with Union Jacks, states that a Labour government will still “revive our industrial heartlands”, “create 500,000 good jobs across Britain”, and “upgrade millions of homes to cut bills”.
But given Starmer’s track record, everyone knows that these are little more than hollow soundbites.
Labour will deliver a decade of national renewal.
Our Green Prosperity Plan is central to that mission.
It will create good jobs across Britain, cut bills and provide energy security.
Here’s how 👇 pic.twitter.com/CDOf1QTLiL
— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) February 8, 2024
Business
In an effort to excuse their latest change of tune, the Labour leaders have blamed the Tories for leaving them a mighty mess to clean up. It’s better to make no commitments, Starmer and co. say, than to make promises and then break them!
Where Labour has pledged to improve public services, such as schools and hospitals, they suggest that they will fund this by making the economy ‘grow’. But this begs the question: if it were as easy as turning on the growth taps, then why did nobody think of this before?
Above all, Keir Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves have made every effort to reassure big business that Labour will be on their side, and that the rich will not be asked to pay.
“Be in no doubt,” cooed Reeves, speaking to a recent gathering of bosses and bankers hosted by Labour, “we will campaign as a pro-business party – and we will govern as a pro-business party.”
Austerity
Wafting away the fog of rhetoric and euphemisms, the real situation is painfully clear. A Starmer government, the Labour leaders repeat, will have to make ‘tough decisions’ when it comes to spending – meaning yet more brutal austerity for the working class.
Unlike with Blair in 1997, assuming Labour wins the next election, it will come to power on the back of the deepest crisis of capitalism since the 1930s.
British capitalism, with its rentier economy based on financial gambling and speculation, is in a particularly dire state, as exemplified by the looming jobs massacre at Tata Steel.
And with Labour now jettisoning its pledge to properly invest in green jobs, it’s clear that workers in industry will need to rely on their own strength when it comes to defending their livelihoods.
Starmer – the establishment’s knight in shining armour – has proven time and time again that he is no friend of the working class. That is why we are launching and building the Revolutionary Communist Party.
Bankers’ banquet: Starmer schmoozes with big business
Dr Rahul Mehta
What’s the most you’ve ever paid for a dinner? Probably not £1,000! That’s how much City executives paid to attend Labour’s ‘business day’ recently. The party sold out all 400 tickets within four hours, making enough money to pay the annual salary of 13 newly qualified and underpaid doctors.
Personally, I’d rather fork out a grand to avoid a cocktail evening with Sir Keir and his motley crew of blue Tories. But these City boys and girls wouldn’t want to miss a chance to have the ear of our future PM.
For them, the event was quite the bargain. The Labour Party conference business forum last October was £2,000 per head.
Once we expropriate the bosses and billionaires, we can put this money to better use – instead of paying to sip Cosmopolitans while Rachel Reeves tells us about why bankers’ bonuses are more important than A&E waiting lists.
Private healthcare for the rich, waiting lists for the rest
Caleb Sharp
After days of dehydration following a severe allergic reaction to antibiotics, my partner had the pleasure of waiting 15 hours at A&E to line up in the halls of the hospital for a bag of fluid, only to be sent off.
Not a day later, my mother suddenly lost all movement in her legs and waited 20 hours overnight to be seen. At the time of writing, she’s been there over a week, getting one test every few days to determine if she’ll ever walk again.
The crisis of the NHS has gotten so bad that even Piers Morgan, a consistent mouthpiece for the establishment, has said: “The NHS is a brilliant system once you get to the point where you are getting care. But getting to that point has become a national disgrace.”
Yet it’s Morgan’s puppet masters who have systematically gutted the NHS to the detriment of everyone but the elite.
It is becoming clear that the bosses will sooner see us perish than sacrifice even a crumb of their profits.
In light of King Charles’ recent diagnosis, I would challenge him and the rest of his class: Don’t go private! Book an appointment with the NHS that you have destroyed! Let’s see how long ‘His Majesty’ would last then.
£120k not enough for out-of-touch Tories
Rab, Uxbridge
Tory MP George Freeman has found himself ensnared by the very economic mess that his party has helped to create.
Last November, Freeman stepped down from his position as Minister for Science, Research, and Innovation – not out of any noble sense of duty, but in search of an even higher income to pay for his rising domestic bills.
Seemingly oblivious to the struggle of everyday people, Freeman bemoaned the hardship of subsisting on a measly £120,000 ministerial salary – a sum that apparently left him floundering in the wake of the mortgage rate disaster that his own party unleashed during Liz Truss’ tenure.
The irony is heavier than the austerity measures that he and his colleagues so frequently prescribe for the rest of us.
Liberated from the shackles of ministerial responsibility, the Mid Norfolk MP now finds himself with ample time to indulge in the time-honoured tradition of amassing wealth through lucrative second jobs – a practice all too common among our esteemed representatives who, ostensibly, are elected to serve the public interest.
Unpopular populism
Adam Booth
This week, on Thursday 15 February, voters in Wellingborough and Kingswood, two towns in Northamptonshire and Gloucestershire, respectively, are going to the polls.
Both seats are currently held by the Tories. But the party is doing its best to lose this pair of by-elections.
Former Wellingborough MP Peter Bone was suspended from Parliament over accusations of abuse and harassment. He was then removed by local constituents through a recall petition. Yet the wise sages in Tory HQ thought it would be appropriate to have his partner, local councillor Helen Harrison, stand as his replacement.
To reverse their ailing fortunes, however, the Tories have an ace up their sleeves: the ever-oblivious, seemingly-indestructible Liz Truss.
The former PM was only in Downing Street for a month-and-a-half – infamously outlasted by a lettuce. Her only achievement during her blink-and-you’ll-miss-it time in office was to simultaneously tank the UK economy and the Tories’ polling figures.
Yet without a hint of irony, the Iceberg Lady has now launched a new Tory faction (as if we weren’t already spoiled for choice): Popular Conservatism, or ‘PopCon’ to its fans.
PopCon’s mission statement is clear: to liberate the country from the “woke warriors” and “left-wing extremists” who have apparently taken over Britain’s institutions.
Well Liz, we’re afraid to tell you that your worst nightmares have yet to come. The communists are coming!
