IT'S NOT just in the USA that the loony right is gunning for the poor and oppresssed. In some ways the US Republicans are taking a lesson from Thatcher's politics of grasping individualism.
But now the American example appears to be galvanising a fresh offensive by the Tory right.
On top of this year's brutal attacks on unemployment, sickness and invalidity benefits - designed to slash payments to tens of thousands of claimants, John Major's top cabinet 'bastards' are lining up to inflict more welfare cuts.
In three closely coordinated speeches last week, Tory ministers Michael Portillo, Peter Lilley and John Redwood set out new plans to slash state spending.
Every proposal is to be shrouded in the kind of anti-government rhetoric that would make Newt Gingrich proud.
Portillo, the heir apparent of the Tory right, is trying to reinvigorate laissez-faire capitalism and Victorian values of private morality.
The state is, he argued, in danger of making the people its servant rather than serving the people".
Peter Lilley went a step further. He is paving the way for the return of the Poor Law.
Addressing the Social Market Foundation, he signalled the end of the principle of uniform national social security provision, claiming that 'there can be advantages in some circumstances in devolving responsibility to a local level". Democrats accede to the Republican agenda - they are just as committed to the 'conservative opportunity society' as the other party of big business.
Friends Meeting House (opposite Euston Station)
Free East Timor!
Speakers include JOSE RAMOS HORTA, External Representative of the National Council Of Maubere Resistance.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 76. 21 January 1995, Page 8