Brown takes up Thatcher’s baton
by Ken Ferguson - 16th June 2009
Amidst all the warm words marking the 39th anniversary of Thatcher’s
1979 election victory one thing is certain—the New Labour government
is her greatest admirer and direct descendant.
At the heart of the New Labour project lies its complete rejection of
any Socialist politics and endorsement of the Thatcherite view worshiping
the free market and the rich.
So after twelve years of majority New Labour government we still have
the most repressive anti union laws in Europe, a growing gulf between
rich and poor and a government wholly at the service of big business.
That’s why lifeboats loaded with billions have been dashing to the rescue
of the bankers who not only steered the financial Titanic into the iceberg
but actually created the iceberg itself.
In contrast Glasgow schools
are closed by New Labour to save a mere £3
million a year , thousands languish on lists for houses, unemployment
climbs and huge service cuts loom.
What we now face is the brutal reality that the supposed triumph of the
market was just as much a myth as the supposedly unsinkable Titanic.
And with the financial crisis has come a growing crisis for Prime Minister
Brown who, despite all the hot air of being a left winger is in truth
a fully paid up member of the Thatcher fan club.
This is, after all, the man who had Thatcher round to tea almost as soon
as he became Prime Minister - going far beyond protocol by escorting
her from her car into the building like a favourite auntie.
And to further bolster his love in with what he had described as the
great “achievements” of the city con men Brown brought in businessmen
such as Digby Jones into his so called “government of all the talents’
Then in September 2007 when he was at the pinnacle off his popularity
and looked like calling an election the ex Socialist PM proclaimed his
creed saying "I think Lady Thatcher saw the need for change. I also
admire the fact she is a conviction politician. I am a conviction politician
like her."
Now both the greed driven economy he championed and the government he
leads lie in ruins teetering on the brink of disaster.
Despite the smoke and hot air about the Brown government’s conversion
to socialism hyped by the right wing press on the back of a modest tax
rise for the rich the truth is out
The cost of saving the bankers from their own greed will be carried by
working people through sackings, slashed services, frozen pay and higher
prices.
And we are not talking about a few months of misery but a diet of hard
times lasting up to twenty years for the workers to pay off the fat cats’
loans.
As one commentator neatly put it “it is ice from here to the horizon”.
However contrary to what the well fed politicians and “experts” preach
there is an alternative to the majority enduring hard times to save the
skins of the greedy elite.
This can be summed up in the slogan adopted for the European elections
by the SSP of Make Greed History which has at its heart the demand that
the rich pay for the crisis they caused.
Perhaps the most important single lesson from the banking crisis is that
–despite what people were told—the money was there all the time.
That lesson is now common knowledge from schools campaigners fighting
closures, pensioners facing soaring food and fuel bills or workers opposing
sackings.
In almost every TV news broadcast somebody expresses this now widely
understood new common sense.
The billions spent to save the City have surely killed stone dead the
old refrain of “we can’t afford it.”
Just as with war, when the fat cats squeal the cash is found and the
left needs now to put this key fact at the centre of its campaigning.
Faced with an unprecedented economic crisis which is running alongside
a perhaps even more serious environmental emergency we need to hammer
home that there is another way.
This has to be the central message hammered home in campaigning up to
the June poll by both the SSP and our Anti Capitalist allies in Europe.
Only a radical break with capitalist greed starting with a wealth tax
to claw back the cash gambled away by the rich can provide an alternative
to falling living standards and slashed services lasting for decades.
Last week one expert was reported as saying that despite the millions
poured into cancer research resulting in new drugs these might be “ too
expensive” to give to patients.
This breathtaking statement spotlights the reality at the heart of market
economics. The skills, expertise and knowledge exist to solve the social,
environmental and health problems we face.
But while the market rules this will only happen if the price is right
and profits to be made.
Rather than twenty years of hard times to help rebuild the profits of
the few it is time to move decisively to put people in charge of money
rather than the other way around.
There are a galaxy of needs—for decent homes, viable free transport,
better healthcare, ending pollution, expanding education—which can be
met from our skills and expertise.
It is not lack of money which prevents this but what that money is used
for.
The last great slump in the 1930s only ended with colossal waste of human
and material resources poured into a world war.
The Left needs to act now to ensure that this time the answer is found
in jobs not bombs and that power is shifted from the privileged few to
meet the needs of the millions, putting people before profit.