So now it's official - the Tories lied when they said they wouldn't raise taxes. The last couple of weeks have seen enormous blows to the government's credibility on the whole range of its social and economic policies, from 'back to basics', to pay, to taxes.
The sleaze and corruption of the Tories has been revealed not just by the Westminster housing scandal, but by the revelation that foreign aid money has been used to buy arms deals with Malaysia and Indonesia.
At the heart of the government's unpopularity is a realisation in huge sections of the population that most working people are struggling economically; and that 'back to basics' is not first and foremost about personal morality, but about finding reasons to attack the welfare state.
All but the very rich know that keeping your head above water financially is very difficult; and nearly everyone knows someone who's unemployed or a single mother. And they know that neither reading hypocritical lectures about personal morality, nor pay freeze nor cutting the welfare state offer any solutions.
Last year the Tories were in deep difficulties over the miners and over Maastricht. They have for the moment solved both problems. But now they find themselves in yet another round of crisis.
Behind that crisis of course is the continuing recession. And the Tories' opponents have to have their own answer to the capitalist crisis.
Incoherent
Labour economic spokesperson Gordon Brown is quite right to say the government's tax crisis is because of unemployment - the mushrooming cost of social security. But his own answer to how Labour would deal with unemployment is incoherent and unconvincing. A bit of training here and an energy tax there won't change very much at all.
The more unpopular the Tories get, the more they steamroller on with their reactionary agenda. This is the paradox of the situation: Major is more unpopular than Thatcher, and his government weaker. But the attacks on the welfare state, the attacks on living standards, go on and on with no respite.
Allies The Tories biggest allies in getting away with this con-job are the Labour and trade union leaders. The 'new realist' union leaders are silent and demobilising, and the Labour leadership ultra-cautious in putting forward any proposals that might sound the slightest bit radical.
Take rail privatisation. The logical thing is to say that Britain needs a state-owned rail industry with a huge state subsidy - as happens in nearly every other advanced capitalist country. There's nothing revolutionary in that at all.
Yet Labour is reduced to saying 'public or private is not the issue - when It is a sad comment on the political degeneration of the Labour leadership that it cannot even defend some minimal Keynesian reflationary proposals, let alone radical or socialist solutions. everyone knows it is precisely the issue.
Take housing. Why doesn't Labour demand a massive programme for building new social housing, and government grants for renovating the deteriorating housing stock? Getting the building industry going again would help the homeless and start to get 500,000 unemployed building workers off the dole.
Labour doesn't do any of these things because they could be interpreted as a spending pledge. And Labour won't TORY STEĄZE TORY (MII STER House the Homeless!