mum MY MATES at NM Rothschild have made a pretty penny out of privatisation.
The well-known merchant bankers (and that's not rhyming slang) have acted as underwriter or adviser on most major sell-offs of the last decade: British Telecom, British Gas, Britsh Airways, British Airports Authority. British Petroleum. British Steel, British Coal and the regional water and electricily companies, to name just the biggies.
One of your Labour MP chappies cheekily asked how much all this work had cost the taxpayer. John Major quite rightly told him: The fees paid are a matter of commercial confidentiality.
These undisclosed fees, incidentally, are paid out by the Treasury, where both the chancellor, Norman Lamont, and the economic secretary. Алthony Nelson, are former employees of a well-known merchant bank. No prizes for guessing which one. Airline crash Britain's privatisation programme is a beacon of FEATURE hope to the peoples of Eastern Europe as they struggle to throw off the long dark night of communist totalitarianism, and all that jazz. Unfortunately, it seems that the Czech national airline SA, privatised only last year, is already close to liquidation.
This will be a blow to two western interest, who each hold a 20 per cent stake. One is the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, headed by M Jacques Attall; the other is Air France, headed by M. Bernard Attall. The two men deny that the fact they are twin brothers had any influence on the deal. I CAN HARDLY be expected to applaud the formation of Transparency International, which describes itself as an international coalition against corruption in international business transactions' But the group has released an interesting survey of contract kickbacks worldwide. which reveals that backhanders are particulary rife in deals tary supplies, telecommunications. industrial and agro-industrial projects, dams. bridges. airports, hospitals, oil.
It seems that 5 per cent of $200.000 will ensure a helpful attitude from officials below top rank, whereas it takes the same cut of $2 million to win the support of a permanent At $20m you get to deal with ministers, while a cut from $200 million "justifies the seri ous interest of the head of state'. Fortunately, as the Rothschild example shows, we are nat bir more subte in this country. 4. MEANWHILE, Master of Business Administration versity of Buenos Aires are being offered courses on corruption and how to combat it.
Lecturers will include the city s mayor, mus preoccesso has just been charged with trauduient acministrauon.
There have been 19 major corruption scandals since the present administration took office three years ago, resulting in the sacking of 20 senior aides and ministers. Funnily tions have ended in a trial. INSIDER dealing is not an offence in Germany. This is just as well for Franz Steinkuhler, leader of that country's most powerful trade union, IG MetThe man is union rep on the supervisory of board of Daimler, the motor manufacturers, and even plays tennis with the chief executive.
By what he insists is a stroke of luck, Steinkuhler bought £400,000 worth of shares in Daimler's holding company shortly before the boaro outered to exchange them for full company shares. Their value shot up 20 percent overnight. Now there's a thing.
Incidentally, Steinkuhler also sits on the boards of both Volkswagen and Thyssen. His salary is £110,000 a year, twice what Alan Jinkinson of NALGO gets as Britain's best-paid general secretary. THE FOLLOWING really was published in the Financial Times letters to the editor slot: "Sir, My late father campaigned for insider trading to be made compulsory, believing it to be the only way an ignorant investor could be protected from his own stupidity.
Thank you, Nigel JohnsonHill of Liphook. Hampshire. Your dad spoke for us all. using the full powers of the state. survived only by repressing their own working class. tradition of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. establish its own class rule. in 40 countries world-wide. curselves to be one. their own demands, which are a part of the struggle for socialism. ing free to debate their differences. YES, I agree with much of what I have seen in Socialist Outlook, and want to know more about readers' groups in my area. Name.. Address. Phone Send to: Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU oppressed, allowing them to pick off isolated sections one at a time.
In response. most TUC and Labour leaders have embraced the defeatist poitics of 'new realism", effectively proclaiming total surrender on every front, while ditching any pretence that they offer a socialist alternative. Every retreat and concession they have made to the employers and the government has simply fuelled and encouraged the offensive against jobs, wages, conditions and union New realism is the latest form taken by the politics of reformism. seeking no more than improved conditions within the framework of Socialist Outlook rejects reformism, not because we are against tanund or retorms, but because we know that the needs of tha working class - for full employment, decent living standards, a clean environment, peace and democracy - can never be achieved under Nor, as we argued long before the collapse of Stalinism, could these demands ever be achieved under the bureaucratically deformed workers states and degenerated USSR, whose regimes We are a marxist current, based not on the brutish totalitarian parodies of state marxism, nor on the tame, toothless version of Our socialist alternative is not based on parliamentary elections or illusions of peaceful legislative change. We fight to mobilise and unleash the power of the working class - the overwhelming majority of society - to topple the corrupt and reactionary rule of capital and We struggle against fragmentation by building solidarity, working to link and unite the various struggles of workers, the unemployed. of women, of pensioners, of the black communities and ethnic minorities, of lesbians and gay men, of students, of youth - and of those fighting imperialism in Ireland and throughout the world. Socialist Outlook is above all an internationalist current, in solidarity with the Trotskyist Fourth International, which organises co-thinkers Unlike some other groupings on the British left, we do not believe can be built simply by proclaiming this degenerates into sectarian posturing and abstention from the actual struggle taking shape within the labour movement, playing into the hands of the right wing.
Nor do we believe that the demands of women, black people. lesbians and gays or the national demands of people in Scotland and Wales should be left to await the outcome of a socialist revolution. The oppressed must organise themselves and fight now around But propaganda alone, however good, will not bring socialism. The fight for policies which can mobilise and politically educate workers in struggle, must be taken into the unions, the Labour Party campaign and struggle in which workers and the opTo strengthen this fight we press for united front campaigns on key issues such as fighting racism and fascism - in which various left currents can work together for common objectives while remainIf you agree with what you see in Sociatist Outlook, and want to join with us in the struggle for socialism, readers groups meet in many towns across the country. Contact us now, get organised, and
May Wednesday 26 NO NAZIS in Hoanslowweekly meeting details 081 572 8656 Thursday 27 THE STRUGGLE for Human Rights and Democracy in Punjab 7.00 Conway hall red Lion Square WC1 ILFORD: Protest the racist murder of Fiaz Mirza 7.30 Little Ilford Youth Centre Rectory Road Friday 28 BENEFIT in aid of Burnsalls strike fund 8pm The Union Club 723 Pershore Road Birmingham Saturday 29 REINSTATE Sacked CleanJAMES CONNOLLY march and rally 2pm King Stables Road off Lothian Road Edinburgh Sunday 6 RED AID for Bosnia launch conterence London details 071 252 5122 Monday 7 BRENT Socialist Campaign Group 7.30 Trades and Labour Hall 375 High Road NW10 Saturday 12 ARA/TUC demonstration against racist murders 11.30am Norbury Park Croydon Saturday 12-Sunday 13 ASSEMBLY of the European Left Paris transport leaves London noon Travel, accomin Saturday 26 ence 10.30am-4.30pm CamE15/E5 from Socialist Health 16 Charles Square, London N1 6HP FOR YOUR DIARY... contact Socialist Outlook about these events:
3 July FIGHTING New Management orward Major's chickens come home THAT NICE Mr Major is certainly getting nasty as the full scope of the economic crisis created by the Tories becomes apparent. percent of GNP. The Maastricht Treaty - Just endorsed by the Commons- forbids borrowing more than 3 percent. By 1995-6 Britain's total interest bill will be £26 billion a year -almost as much as the current NHS budget! laced by Harold Wilson's Labour government in 1976, when the IMF was called in, and savage cuts imposed. thing - and that is not Tory pollcy! SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 43 May 29 1993. Page 15 Norman Lamont's E50 billion budget deficit represents eight The interest alone on a £50 billion debt is £5 billion a year.
Lower inflation means that today's crisis is worse than that The whole deficit could be redressed by a 6p increase in income tax: but that would mean the rich would have to pay some-
Expert tuition
Franz's raquet pays off
Blowing the gaff