cafed bee Tracker short-ter LEAD 10 cuts long-ten damage IT WOULD be funny if it were not so pathetically reactionary.
As ever more evidence emerges of the widening class divide created by sixteen years of Tory policies, Tony Blair prates on as Major once did about 'one nation' politics.
And as traditionally Tory shire counties are convulsed by angry mass protests over cuts in education, social services and other vital services, Blair's team has nothing of consequence to offer.
Instead they are intent upon a 'single goal, waging their internal fight against Clause Four and any lingering aspiration to socialism.
Of course Blair's crusade against Clause Four is being waged under the misleading banner of 'social justice'.
If this meant anything at all, the recent Rowntree Foundation report highlighting the widening gulf between rich and poor would have offered ideal ammunition for a renewed offensive against the Tories and their system, which breeds and depends upon inequality.
But when challenged by Tory ministers, neither Blair nor his right wing team have been able to say what they would do to change the situation, beyond routine platitudes about improved education and training.
This is no surprise. As his campaign has gone on, Blair has been ever more explicit in repudiating Labour's working class base and targeting the prosperous middle class, embracing their illusions that class distinctions can somehow be swept away while leaving capitalism intact.
On February 15 Blair went so far as to lay claim to "the mantle of one nation politics, formerly claimed by Tories such as Disraeli, Baldwin, Edward Heath and (for a few months) John Major.
Cynical
UNISON UNISON HOW MAT UNISO MORI MUST BE EPFLOVE CUTs since 1979, while the rich have got richer), Blair warns:
"If people feel that in effect they live in different nations within the same country, then the social fabric becomes torn, creating alienation among one group and insecurity and concern among the rest. Even the better off cannot escape its consequences. Inequality therefore is a middle class issue. It is an issue of enlightened self-interest as well as social justice."
Instead of detecting in the tearing of the social fabric' a desperate need for fundamental change, an opportunity for Labour to reach out to millions of exploited, downtrodden and oppressed working class men and women, and advance the fight for socialism, Mr Blair sees it as a threat to the capitalist order -which he supports.
Polite
'Inequality' - a polite word for poverty - is therefore to be fought by 'New Labour' not by mobilising and empowering the poor and the exploited, nor by any challenge to the capitalist system which has made them poor even as the Tories stuffed the wallets of the rich.
Instead Labour will make a genteel appeal to the 'enlightened self-interest' of the well-to-do. Poverty is thus transformed from a radicalising issue for the poor into a conscience question for the middle class.
Of course Mr Blair would not be so rude as to suggest that these self-interested middle class and capitalist layers should pay more tax. His team are so scared of any such idea that they are tonguetied in opposing Tory cuts in education, health and social security spending.
Nor - as his campaign to kill off Clause Four demonstrates -would he countenance any challenge to the power, wealth and profits of the super-rich:
Far be it from Mr Blair to attempt in any way to undermine private ownership of the means of production, or the fundamental system of production for profit rather than for social need. which has brought the current misery to millions at home and abroad.
Voting for a Labour government pledged, as Mr Blair intends, to capitalist policies, is therefore unlikely to make any serious difference to the plight of the bottom 30 percent.
So exactly what he expects the 'middle class' to do about inequality - even if they were concerned about it - is not clear.
Maybe millionaire Blairites Melvin Bragg and Ken Follett would sponsor a few fund-raising luvvie lunches, or a series of government-sponsored Pink Nose Days might urge the more philanthropically-inclined of the middle classes to donate a few pence to those less equal than themselves?
The abandonment of Clause Four is therefore much more fundamental and significant for Labour's politics than the mere ditching of a long-ignored form of words or a vision of collectivism: it is a symptom of the Blair leadership's rejection of any radical challenge to the capitalist system.
Blunkett
It is no accident that as Blair fights for the end of Clause Four, Education spokesman Blunkett (unsuccessfully) urges teachers not to take strike action to oppose education cuts, but to seek alliances with Tory parents; and Jack Straw embraces the reactionary right of the Tory Party in his defence of racist immigration controls.
As tens of thousands take to the streets to defend schools and old people's homes, hospitals and fire services, many have already advanced beyond the new limits Blair wants to impose on Labour's policies.
The fight to defend Clause Four and defeat the right wing Blair offensive in the Labour Party and trade unions is key to the fight for a genuine political opposition to the Tories and their bankrupt system, with policies based on the needs of the majority, not the profits of the few.