Clegg "Blooded"

We expect bourgeois politicians to be unprincipled, but, as professionals, the one thing they shouldn't be is inept. New Labour showed a significant degree of ineptness - accepting money from bernie Ecclestone, then exempting F1 from the ban on cigareete advertising; the 75p rise in Pensions; the abolition of the 10p tax rate. All are examples of actions, which unnecessarily drew criticism, and a subsequent loss of support. The announcements yesterday by the Liberal-Tory Government of a series of measures cutting programmes previously agreed by Labour are of the same order.

Some of the decisions seem just petulant. A number of hospital building programmes were agreed, but one for Hartlepool in deep Labour territory was scrapped, despite promises by the Tories and liberals prior to the election. None of the measures cut amount to a hill of beans in terms of the total amounts the Government proposes to cut, and so why these particular programmes is at first hard to fathom. Its one thing to simply reduce future spending that no one had been expecting, but to cut programmes that people had already thought had been agreed is to invite opposition.

The highest profile was the decision to scrap the £80 million loan to Sheffield Forgemasters, a decision which has already provoked the understandable reaction of workers within the City. The decision seems perverse. On Newsnight, last night, the Government did not even put up a Government Minister to defend the decision, but instead put up an old Thatcherite MP, Michael Fallon. His argument was ridiculous on a number of counts. Firstly, the Government line has been that these cuts were necessary because the books were worse than even they had thought they were. That is an obvious statement that any new Government is going to make to blame the previous Government. The trouble is that over the last few months the official data has been showing that actually things were BETTER than had previously been expected. To make that worse for the Government, the new Office of Budget Responsibility that they have set up as an independent assessor of how the Public Finances stand, has confirmed that view. The Government said it needed this £2bn of cuts, because they had found a further black hole, but the OBR had already said that actually the finances were £30 billion better than Alistair Darling had assumed in his calculations!

Worse, he repeatedly spoke about this not being sustainable because it amount to being a cost of half a million pounds per job. But, there was no such cost. It was n't a grant to the company, but a loan at a 3% rate of interest. Rather than it costing the Government money, they would have been receiving money from it! Rathger than there being a cost per job, there would have been income per job. That is before you consider the income that would be received in Tax from wages and profits, and so on. If this is the mathematical skills of the new Government let alone its grasp of Economics it does not speak very well for the prospects for the future! The decision seems perverse for another reason. The Government like Labour has spoken about the need to rebalance the economy to promote manufacturing, as well as to shift reliance in places like Sheffield, from the Public to the private Sector.

This is a company, which with assistance from the previous Government had done a deal with the giant US Westinghouse Corporation to produce equipment for the latest generation of nuclear power stations. Everyone knows that in thye coming years Governments in Europe, and around the world will be increasing their investment in such new nuclear power stations in order to meet their carbon reduction targets. This was an opportunity for an efficient British company to become a world leader in this technology, in a high value added sector, employing skilled labour. It is precisely the kind of industry Britain needs to develop to compete on the world market, and if British workers are to have any chance of avoiding a huge drop in living standards as they compete in the world market with low wage economies in Asia and elsewhere. For the Tories to withdraw this loan, to save just £80 million now, that they would have got back with interest seems inexplicable. But wait.

At first glance another factor also seems inexplicable, perverse, and inept. Sheffield is also the City in which Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg is MP. Why would he shit in his own back yard? Remember another one of the Tories election promises - they promised to bring back fox hunting, one of the favourite pastimes of the Public School brigade whose members make up a large number of the Government benches. In Fox Hunting they have a ritual in which the young aristos, and aspiring nouveau riche kids, are inducted on their first hunt by being "blooded". That is they are daubed with the blood of the first fox killed. It basically means that they are no longer just along for the ride, but are as blood soaked as all the other chinless wonders. Clegg has been "blooded". By making this cut in his City, Clegg is now irrevocably tied to his Tory masters. He cannot claim, "it was all their fault Guv." The workers of Sheffield have been sacrificed on the high altar of Tory-Liberal ritual, in order that Clegg could be inducted into the club. That is no surprise, the workers are always the ones asked to pay the price for the rituals, dogmas, and adventures of the ruling class, from just an economic price to the price of their lives sacrificed on the battlefield when the ruling classes engage in some new pointless war.

Labour Leaddership hopefuls have begun to stand up verbally to the Tories assault. That is good. It would be more believable had they been standing up for workers over the last 13 years too. But, the fact they are standing up now is a start, and something that we can use. We need more than bold words from them, we need actions. After 1979, Michael Foot led massive marches in Cities around the country to oppose the Tories cuts, and attacks on workers. During that period Labour soared to over 50% in the opinion polls. We should demand these Labour leadership candidates do at least the same now. But, more than marches are needed. We need action committees in each area to resist the Tories plans. The government says, it wants to consult the people on what to cut. Let's take them at their word.

Local Labour parties and trades Councils, should immediately be organising local Conferences to discuss what we think should be cut. Here are some initial suggestions.

1. The Queen wants a 15% pay rise. The Tories say "We are all in this together." Okay then, instead of a pay rise, scrap the Civil List payments to the rich, royal scroungers, and let them pay their own way. Better still scrap the Monarchy altogether.

2. The Tories propose to cut Public Sector worekrs wages. Start at the top. All Public Officials, from MP's, to Judges, to the Military Top Brass to be only paid the average wage.

3. The Liberals argued in the election that they could pull in billions by collecting unpaid tax by the rich. Properly staff the tax offices so we can get in the estimated £120 billion in tax unpaid by the rich and big companies.

4. Scrap Trident. Again the Liberals said they would, so let's hold them to that.

5. Pull all the troops back from abroad not just from Afghanistan. Defence is one thing, but why do you need to be occupying other people's country for defence? Then we would need need all those billions of pounds worth of ships, aeroplanes, and so on either. We could sell them off to pay down the debt. The workers now employed building such useless things could be employed instead to build hospital equipment to treat the sick. And, if we really were concerned with defence that could be done by concentrating resources on developing an effective militia, with universal conscription into it.

6. Similarly, the Tories and liberals propose bringing in some democracy to the Police Force. But, the most democratic police force, would be one in which the whole population participated, in the same way that people participate in Jury Service. Everyone could be organised into local groups to police their own neighbourhoods, and each local group could employ its own specialists. That would save a fortune. If the rich and the bosses want a police force to protect their property, and to break strikes like they did against the Miners let them pay for it themselves, not have the cost covered by workers in their taxation to the bosses state.

7. The Tories say they are in favour of Co-ops to run Public Services. So am I provided those Co-ops have real control, provided workers in local communities can determine the level of service they want subject to national minimum requirements. But, in things like the NHS private companies rip them off big style inb payments for drugs, equipment and so on. If we are to have Co-ops to run Public Services, we should equally have Co-ops to run these private companies. There is £800 billion now in workers Pension Funds. Give us the basic right to demcoratically controlo those funds, so that we can take over the biggest, most important, strategic companies in the country and run them as Worker Owned Co-ops.

Now is the time to take the the fight to the Liberal-Tories. Now is the time for the labour leadership candidates to prove they are worth consideration.