If the Con-Dem government survives five years, it hardly bears thinking about the wreckage it will leave behind. With the ‘deficit’ providing the pretext, the ruling class could snatch away the gains of decades of working-class struggle: the welfare state, the NHS, our living standards and union rights, all of which they never wanted us to have.
The first year has been devastating enough. Hundreds of jobs have been cut on the Tube. The heart of the NHS is being turned from health needs to private profit a private-run ‘free schools’ are eroding comprehensive education. Only the rich will access university with EMA scrapped and tuition fees now £9,000 a year. The rest of us might find ourselves on the dole, with unemployment at a 17-year high, and public spending cuts about to kick another million out of work. Local councils are closing everything from homeless shelters to local libraries and swimming pools.
Looking to the future, those of us in work could find our rights to organise threatened by new anti-union legislation. And the recent Hutton Report recommends public sector workers like us pay more contributions and work until we drop.
One thing unites all these attacks on our living standards: class. This government ARE the rich and they serve their class. They have never worked or even associated with working-class people. Tory GLA member Richard Bacon trousers tens of thousands in allowances from the public purse while demanding we have our nominee passes taken away. Last November, when Tory Peer Howard Flight said welfare changes would encourage ‘breeding’ among people on benefits, we glimpsed at the de-humanising contempt people of their class feel towards us. They think we should do no more than work to enhance their profits, for the lowest wages, with no union organisation. Our quality of life is not their concern.
The silver lining is that they are attacking the entire working class almost simultaneously, so the whole working class can and should fight back. In the last few weeks, council chambers across the country have been occupied and blockaded by protests against budget cuts, involving people who have never been politically active before. Members of the University and College Union will strike on 24th March. Before Christmas, huge student protests drew a new generation into political struggle.
Soon, the cuts will hit home. Will people stand another four years of this? The Con-Dem government is a fragile coalition that could be forced to reverse its decisions or toppled before its time is up. We just need to build enough political pressure. The first stage will be the anti-cuts demonstration in London on 26th March, bringing together trade unionists, anti-cuts campaigners and students. We do not have to wait to see the wreckage at the end of five years. Let’s fight to stop the cuts and save public services now!
