Which Side Are You On?

The title of this post comes from a pro-union song by Pete Seeger, a very stirring piece that everyone should listen to (link)

It is also what a lot of people must be asking the Lib Dems after their pact with the Conservatives but a few weeks ago. Impressed with Clegg's performance in the leadership debates, it is understandable that many would flock to the Lib Dems in support of what they thought was the candidate for 'change'. However, the Lib Dems showed their true colours by demonstrating they were simply Yellow Tories, and gave Dave the support he needed to form a government.

'But Mr. Hawkins', I hear, 'Surely this is just sour grapes on your part? The Lib Dems simply went after the best deal, and you can't really blame them from trying to get into government - better to rule than be in opposition! Besides, they're still the Lib Dems, they've not done anything noticeably Tory.'

There is much to be said for this idea. I accept that Cameron is our PM and and the Tories are the biggest party in Parliament, as much as I detest it. However, the Lib Dems have shown that they are Tories with a different rosette, not only in their record on local councils, but also quite majorly in what they propose to do with Royal Mail.

The government is preparing for another potentially explosive confrontation with the postal unions by attempting to privatise Royal Mail, the Guardian has learned.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, is determined to press ahead with a restructuring of the group, which could embroil the government in a dispute with the Communication Workers Union

...

A majority of Tory and Lib Dem MPs back some form of privatisation, cancelling out any potential Labour opposition.

There you have it folks, in black and white. The Lib Dems are directly responsible for privatising a public service. The Tories can't really be blamed for this, they're doing what comes naturally to them, and what's been expected of them since the 1980s. They're still scum, mind, only we knew that much anyway. People at least knew what they were voting for with the Conservatives. But people really expected better of the Libs, and they have been well and truly sold down the river. And people will remember the part the Liberals played in this farce.

I don't need to point out that this sets a very dangerous precedent with regards to other public services. Both Tories and Lib Dems are hot on introducing 'private and voluntary' services where the State exists, under the guise of empowerment to ordinary people. In fact, this is just a roundabout way of privatisation, of making cuts a more palatable to the general public. It is a deception.

It's not only the Royal Mail that's facing the axe. The working class the world over is under attack. This is usually the case, though now with the worldwide recession, this conflict is becoming more and more apparent. But there are signs of a fight back. The lowest paid are being asked to foot the bill for this crisis, and quite rightly they are not having it. Protests are cropping up in Romania over similar but much more drastic cuts as we see here. In Spain, the public sector workers are proposing a general strike on June 2nd. The situation in Greece I have already touched upon, and needs no further introduction. As of writing, the injunction on the UNITE strikers in the BA dispute has been overturned, and there looks to be another round of strikes from there on in.

Increasingly, it's coming down to the workers against big business and their cronies in governments across the globe.

So tell me...which side are you on?

Eat the Rich

In The Independent I came across this real piece of work, written by one Jon Moulton. Apparently we’re in a bit of a bind with the economy as of late (this was very surprising news for me) and our Jon’s getting a bit miffed that the politicians aren’t doing much about it.

‘In the past week our politicians have put on their most serious faces and addressed the economy. They have got into a wrangle about National Insurance contributions. Labour wants to increase them; the Tories don't. A lot of heat has been generated, much ink spilt. What it suits none of them to tell you, though, is that such talk is tinkering at the margins. The debt that Britain faces is monstrous, and neither Tories nor Labour will admit it. They prefer to quibble about the small change than admit that they are taking part in, in effect, a conspiracy on the British people. To make it worse, much of the media is allowing them to get away with it, presumably because they think – as the politicians seem to believe – that the public doesn't want to hear the bad news. In short, we are complicit in a con.’

So, here we go, another ‘captain of industry’ calling for ‘belt tightening’ in terms of public spending. In other news, the sky is blue and Eric Pickles is a Big Mac away from a massive heart attack. Nothing out of the ordinary here. But what particular brand of poison is Mr. Moulton trying to sell us today?

After taking us on a whimsical journey back to the 1970s (where not even the dead were buried don’t you know), Moulton makes some comparisons of how good we had it back then compared to now:

‘Actually, quite a few other things were better in the mid-1970s: unemployment was half of today's level. The 1975 decline in the economy was only one-seventh of what happened to us last year. And the UK had much less of the largely unmentioned other debt – mostly, the pensions promises that will have to be paid by future generations, which now represents perhaps 125 per cent of GDP but was near 20 per cent in the 1976 time frame. Not a reassuring background.’

Keep that unemployment tidbit in your mind.

We’re in such a terrible predicament, Mr. Moulton, whatever can we do about it?

‘’Increasing taxes is not going to get there. We need to get £50bn plus in each year to stop the debt from rising in five years' time. Look at the bickering about National Insurance rises – try 10 per cent on VAT as a political idea to make a good dent in the budgetary hole. It's inconceivable that our current politicians would have the stomach to do this. In any case, the tax load would probably become counterproductive with businesses and people moving overseas to less taxing environments.’

Gee, that’s awfully convenient, would it be ineffective because the tax burden would probably come down hardest on Mr. Moulton and his mates? Perish the thought...

‘Civil servants do not really generate growth, so a smaller private sector has to support a larger public sector.’

Oh boy. Bear in mind Mr. Moulton is the head of Better Capital and used to be on the executive board of Alchemy, both of which are ‘private equity groups’ (I,e, asset-strippers). If I were in that position, I certainly wouldn’t talk about civil servants not ‘generating growth.’

In fact, Moulton, as with most people featured on this blog, has some interesting baggage going into this debate. Back in 2000, Alchemy showed an interest in purchasing Rover, the car company in order to rescue it from tanking. Was Moulton interested saving jobs there?

"if we get it right, we can make a great deal of money" out of the Rover deal.

Need more be said?

‘Now that really leaves the only route to stability, which is to cut the public proportion of our economy, which means reducing spending, increasing the ability of the economy to grow and reducing the number of civil servants, and probably their pay and pensions. And the numbers are large: we need to take out several hundred thousand public sector jobs. We need to reduce the vast liability for public pensions that clouds our future. The politics – and human costs – of this are not palatable. Tough choices have to be made as to what we can afford’

Not content with being obscenely wealthy, Moulton wants to tell us little people we’re due for a royal screwing. If the situation in the 1970s was better because of the smaller amount of people unemployed compared to the present day, what the hell does he think it’s going to be like if we throw ‘hundreds of thousands’ of people into unemployment? Even if civil servants do not ‘generate growth,’ they still draw a salary that is then put back into the economy. How are we to relieve the burden on the State by putting more people on unemployment benefit? Out of all the article, I think this is the section I object to most. It’s what I’ve objected to publicly on this blog all along. Wealthy, unaccountable businessmen who don’t have recourse to the welfare state telling us that ‘tough choices’ have to be made,usually in the form of job cuts. Certainly, it’s ‘not palatable’, but its what’s best for us, for the country in fact! Best be good little children and go along with what our betters tell us. Do we get any say in it? Do we fuck.

I know what Moulton’s proposing will not be a voice in the wilderness. I know there’ll be a glut of MPs who are more than willing to give Moulton and people like him a fair hearing. Meanwhile, civil servants and, let’s face it, other public sector workers later on down the line will have to take the shaft once again. But then where there will moves to try and solve this through the usual channels, with, perhaps, a lobby of parliament, it’ll be fobbed off with the same old excuses. The voices of the many do not carry the same weight as the voices of the rich few. As the old song goes, One Law for Them, and another law for us.

We did not choose to get into these levels of debt, it was the wealthiest in society that was responsible for our present precarious position. Should they not be the ones to suffer for it? Their economics have led us into this disaster - why do they still continue to exist at the top of society?

Let Them Eat Cuts!

In the news this week, a Tory MP (isn’t it always) has called for cuts in public sector waste. Edward Leigh MP, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee has called for ‘staggering’ waste to be slashed across the public sector.

“There is not a shadow of doubt that you can deliver the reduction in the [public finances’] deficit that we require by imposing massive efficiency savings and job cuts on the bureaucracy,” said Leigh as he prepares to step down after nine years in the post.
“It won’t be easy. The next government will have to be ruthless — whole programmes will have to be cut.”

He proceeds to outline quite exorbitant (if true) wastage perpetrated by the MoD and the BBC. These are the kind of cuts that few people could disagree with; even I’d be willing to see eye-to-eye with him on slashing the amount of consultants within the NHS (though I think we’d propose it for quite different reasons).

But what about Edward Leigh himself? Surely a man who takes the chair on the PAC would be the pinnacle of thrift and restraint?

“Together, Brigg and Goole MP Ian Cawsey, Scunthorpe MP Elliot Morley, Cleethorpes MP Shona McIsaac and Gainsborough MP Edward Leigh claimed more than £600,000 between April 2007 and March 2008.”

“The second highest expenses claim was submitted by Gainsborough MP Edward Leigh, who put in returns totalling £154,113 last year.”

Oh.

Not only this, but Leigh voted ‘very strongly’ in favour of replacing that wholly-useless ‘deterrent’ we call Trident. There’s Tory efficiency for you! (Info courtesy of TheyWorkForYou.com – Mr. Leigh’s record is very interesting indeed).

Leigh goes on to say that there is a precedent for public sector workers to take a pay cut, as many in the private sector would do so. He ridicules the idea that a town clerk from his county council could be paid £150,00 a year for their work. Yet without a hint of irony, he goes on to mention Amyas Morse, (Comptroller and Auditor General of the National Audit Office), who received a ‘seven-figure’ salary from Price Waterhouse Coopers, the auditing firm, yet is paid 80% less in his new public sector role. Whether it is a conflict of interest for a former businessman of an auditing agency to take a seat in the NAO is up for debate, yet I would not champion Morse’s commitment to cut his own pay as encouraging. Even if the cut is as large as Leigh states, it’s still a reduction from the millions to the hundred-thousands. In the grand scheme of things, Morse will not be forced do without the essentials or luxuries, unlike the majority of working people who are told to take pay cuts and wage freezes.

Here we come to the crux of the matter. I don’t want this post to be merely an attack on either Leigh or Morse. They’re symptoms of a much large problem, the problem of accountability. All the time we are told that there must be savage cuts in the public sector. By whom? By people who will not be affected by it, by people who have a disproportionate amount of say in what gets cut. Stuff that! If cuts are on the agenda, let the majority of people decide on what needs cutting. There’s a hell of a lot to choose from: public subsidies to private companies (in particular the train operators), PFI, Trident, public sector pay at the top end of the scale, the list goes on. Let’s make things a bit more... ‘level’, shall we?