Not since the fiasco of 1963-4, when the Tories were wracked by the Profumo scandal, has a government been so unpopular and discredited as John Major's crew. The Thatcherite 'revolution' has created a Britain of poverty, economic decline, job insecurity and deep corruption.
The corruption aspect of course is nothing to do with the persoral morality of Tory MPs, and everything to with the corrupt use of power. Sixty thousand Tories and their friends get fat salaries for sitting on unelected 'quangos' managing everything from housing to the media. And their business friends get the fat contracts doled out.
That is just a symptom of deeper decay. Figures out last week showed not only that the economic recovery is slowing, but the conditions of the British workforce are the worst of any major capitalist country. New jobs are disproportionately low-paid and part time; and that is one reason why this year, for the first time ever, there will be more women in the workforce than men.
Ever since 1979 Tory policies have hit the poorest section of the community worst. In the past decade, the poorest 10 per cent of the population have become a staggering 14 per cent worse off. In real terms, there are nearly 5 million unemployed.
The VAT and other tax rises coming in May will hit not only the poor, old and unemployed, but wide sections of the employed workforce and the middle class as well. The 2-3 per cent pay offers to public service workers covered by pay review bodies, like nurses and teachers, will amount to a pay cut Worse, the govemment's refusal to cover the cost of these awards mean that pay increases will mean job losses and cuts in vital services.
Hidden decline
All this is the end-product of 15 years of Thatcherism. In the 1980s the chronic economic decline was all hidden by the US-led mini-boom, North Sea oil money and the enormous revenues from privatisation of key industries. But now almost everything has been sold off the accelerating destruction of Britain's industrial base is clear for everyone to see. Britain is becoming a low-wage, service-based economy.
Against this background, the costs of mass unemployment are forcing the Tories to an inevitable conclusion: to stabilise state finances they have to dismantle the welfare state at national and local level. They hardly bother to deny it - that was the main reason for their ill-fated 'back to basics' campaign in the first place.
If the Tories are merely very unpopular, John Major is finished. The person who proclaims 'we go on with back to basics' is a political clown who must soon be dumped even by the people who inhabit the Tory back benches. The pressure for this will rocket when the Tories. suffer crushing defeats in the local and European elections in May and June this year.
But here is the paradox. A very weak goverhment, presided over by someone with the political acumen of a dim-witted jellyfish, hugely unpopular, scandal-ridden, and ridiculed by the mass media every day of the week. How can such a goverment go on and on witn lis attacks and survive?
There are two connected reasons. The first is the low level of industrial struggle, but this is beginning to change -albeit in small and modest ways.
New mood The weakness of the government and the divisions among the new realist union leaders are creating a new mood; as is the simple need for many workers to fight back. There are still big wages fights to come in the public sector this year.
But the overwhelmingly most important reason for the Tories hanging on is the complete and dire passivity of the Labour leadership and the weakness of the Labour left.
Why doesn't Labour wage a campaign to kick the Tories out? What doesn't it say loud and clear that the Tories have no mandate, and demand a general election?
Labour could take some immediate and minimal steps which would hugely boost its popularity. It could declare immediately that it will reverse the VAT on fuel measures. It could say that it will launch a nationwide house-building scheme using state funds. It could promise that new Labour councils elected in May will bring in needs-based budgets and defy the government.
Labour could pledge that the manic and crazy rush to build more roads will be scrapped in favour of public transport, and that the nationalisation of British Rail will be stopped.
It could promise that pensions in future will be indexed with average earnings, not inflation, so that the elderly don't get poorer than everyone else. It could pledge to scrap prescription charges and inject new cash into the NHS, But where is the Labour Party? Even a pledge to repeal VAT on fuel is deemed too radical by Smith's timid opposition «What kind of Labour leadership is it that regards full employment as some kind of old fashioned ideological quirk?"
Labour could promise to use state investment to boost jobs and to reestablish wages councils along with introducing a national minimum wage.
In other words why doesn't Labour commit itself to break from the market economic consensus, lock, stock and barrel?
Part of the answer for why they won't do this was given by the sudden decision by Bryan Gould to leave politics in Britain. Gould was a key Kinnockite lieutenant through the 1980s, a key figure in the grey tide of new realists which swept out the Bennite left wing challenge.
Yet this same this same Bryan Gould is now regarded as a dangerous and subversive leftie by people like John Smith and Gordon Brown -for daring to argue ..... for full employment! What kind of Labour leadership is it that regards full employment as some kind of old fashioned ideological quirk?
It is a leadership deeply wedded to free-market ideology, which - contrary to what the 'modernisers' think, is one of the most old-fashioned economic theories available. Anyone who thinks that Adam Smith is more 'modern' than Marx or even Keynes is useless as a labour movement leader.
Elections
The current tragi-comedy of official British politics cannot possibly continue. Pay battles and elections in May and June await the Tories. The wrath of millions who see their living standards falling cannot long be held off. The anger of around 100 Tory MPs who are worried about their seats awaits John Major.
And to prepare for these developments, in every section of the labour movement the demand must be raised for the Labour leadership to break with the free market consensus and adopt policies of full employment and defence of the welfare state.
in a national demonstration on saturday march 19 racism is an evil which should have no place in society .....
assemble, 11.00 am Spitalfields Market (off Commercial Street) London E1 March: 12.00 noon Rally: 2.00 p.n London Fields foff Mare Strept london ER
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 57, 26 February 1994, Page 4
RACISM POOR
TUC join the TUC