The Lib-Dems finally got into bed with the Tories, throwing most of their manifesto commitments out of the window. Predictably, the irresistible attraction of government jobs did the trick.

This is what this so-called "democratic" system is about: once elected, politicians can do whatever they want without being accountable to the electorate for the next five years.

Not that a different government combination of the three main parties would make any difference for the working class. Don't they all share the same determination to please the "markets" - that is, the very same bankers and speculators who caused the crisis and the very same bosses who have been cutting jobs and wages over the past 2 years and plundering public funds for their own benefit? This "democracy" is nothing but a thin cover for the dictatorship of the markets!

The knives are out

So far, the government is keeping its austerity plans close to its chest. In and of itself, their caution should be a warning. Hints of minor tax cuts for low-income households are only designed to be the tree that hides the forest.

We can already hear the knife sharpeners. First the media reported that, according to the Treasury, the cuts "required" to reduce the public deficit may be larger that previously thought. This was followed by speculation over a possible VAT increase to 20% - which would hurt mainly those on low incomes and more than eat up any income tax cuts.

Then the new Tory health minister, Andrew Lansley, said that the £20bn "savings" already planned in the NHS by Brown would not be enough. More cuts were needed to pay for new medicines, he said. So the Tories' promise to ensure that the NHS budget would keep increasing in real terms, turns out to be aimed at filling the pockets of pharmaceutical giants, not at improving health care in an already drastically undermanned system. Because what these "savings" will really mean is fewer facilities, fewer nurses, fewer doctors and fewer ancillary staff to take care of patients.

By last Friday, it filtered out that Treasury officials were considering a 15% cut in the budget of most government departments. Since there is no plan to cut costs by withdrawing from the killing fields of Afghanistan, nor to "save" by scrapping the useless Trident nuclear missiles, this means that tens of billions of public sector jobs will be targeted.

Not only will this mean a sharp rise in unemployment and more candidates for each available job. It will also mean tens of thousands fewer street cleaners, binmen, teachers, firefighters. It will mean fewer white collar workers to help us with filling in administrative forms, finding a home to rent, or getting redress against employers' abuse.

Only a united fight back will do

On 22 June, the day when the government plans to announce its so-called "emergency budget", we will know the exact nature of the attacks it has up its sleeve.

These attacks will not just target public sector workers, but all workers, by cutting the public services on which we all rely. This is why all workers, whether unemployed, or in public or private sector jobs, have the same interest in opposing these attacks.

All the more so as, in the meantime, private sector bosses are pushing their luck further and further to boost profits. Real wages are frozen everywhere, when they are not actually cut, and job cuts remain on the agenda everywhere. A company like BT gets away with boasting of having made £1bn profits this year by cutting jobs by 5,000 more than planned. Even the state-controlled, but privately run, RBS bank, goes on record as paying pre-crisis level bonuses to its directors, while shedding another 2,600 jobs, under the false pretense that it is "forced" to do so by Brussels - when it is merely preparing to sell some subsidiaries at a huge profit by reducing their workforces to the bare bone.

The very vagueness of the government so far, tells us one thing, at least - that it is worried about the possible backlash that an announcement of its brutal austerity plans may have. And it should be!

Yes, there is clear ground for all workers, from the public and private sector to join ranks, together with the unemployed, in a united fight back against the bosses and their coalition government - against the cuts in jobs and wages as well as against the public service cuts.

The working class needs to form a coalition of its own, bringing together all its forces in the struggle to force the profiteers, who are responsible for the crisis, to pay the cost of the mess they caused, out of their considerable wealth. Building up such a coalition is the only answer to the coming attacks!