The pre-election battle of the "three chancellors" on Monday night was a love-up! They agreed on almost everything. One tiny note of dissent, when Tory Osborne accused Labour's Darling of stealing his idea - was quickly sorted when Darling agreed about that one too!
Yes, there is absolute accord between all the politicians that to pay for the crisis - and the £167bn budget deficit - the "wasteful" public sector "has to" be cut; and workers must lose their jobs and pensions and take wage-cuts... as well as lose vital services.
What's in a budget
In that sense, Darling's budget last week had already said most of it. But there were some points of note. First, he made no attempt whatsoever to switch even part of the burden onto the backs of those who can afford it. Capital gains tax and corporation tax were not increased by one penny! In fact Darling cut some business taxes. 345,000 businesses will pay no rates at all for a year. While this is aimed to "help" small businesses, we can expect a loophole big enough for larger fish to swim through.
Secondly, he pledged £2.5bn in subsidies supposedly to help businesses invest and "grow" without any clause compelling them to create jobs! And this is where we come to the third point: because worst of all in this budget, was what Darling left out - i.e., precisely where cuts in public services - amounting to £22 billion-worth - would be made. He pencilled them in for implementation in 2011-2013 - saying they would be about "streamlining services".
But we already know that Mr "Fairness" Darling wants one third of civil service jobs in London alone, to disappear. 15,000 will be "relocated". And he is cutting public servants' redundancy pay by a third in preparation for the slashing of jobs! We also know that over 24,000 jobs are to be cut in Royal Mail, plus many more in the NHS and local government.
So with one hand, jobs delivering essential public service are cut and with the other, money is given to the private sector... in the vague hope that somehow, some kind of employment will be "created"? Like the "apprenticeships" at £2.50/hr which he announced, for example?
And now we have the spectacle of a politicians' beauty contest to look forward to over the next 6 weeks before the election - as each party tries to convince the bosses that it is the best equipped to achieve cuts in what they all call "the wasteful public sector"! What did Darling say? That though he "could not" be too specific, they will be "deeper" than those of Thatcher! So if we think things are bad at the moment, apparently, "we ain't seen nothing yet"!
The only vote that counts: all out!
But of course, the point is that neither have the bosses seen anything yet. They certainly haven't seen the collective fight which workers are capable of mounting against them when provoked!
But they are getting a hint of it. Take the workers Willie Walsh decided to attack in British Airways. Their second strike ballot, after the court injunction in December stopped their first planned strike which 93% voted for, was still 80.7% on a 78.7% turnout!
Now up to 12,000 cabin crews are striking despite unprecedented intimidation against them, including portraying these workers, most of whom earn less that £20,000 a year as "greedy"! And despite the removal of travel concessions "for life" from all who "dare" to strike!
And they have also stuck it out despite their own union's antics! Tony Woodley, now their Unite union official, offered BA a pay cut on their behalf and agreed to a parallel crew on BA's "low cost airline" with "low cost" conditions. BA crews couldn't be more right than to stand up against this attempt to establish the appalling sardine-can airlines as a benchmark for all!
The rail maintenance and signal workers similarly are threatened with an injunction against a 7 day strike. But in this case it is the government itself, which owns Network Rail, and not a private boss who is trying to stop them from fighting 1,500 job cuts - which will make the job and the railway even more unsafe.
So it seems that all of us are in the same boat - whether it is our jobs, wages, pensions, services or benefits, the government and the bosses are telling us we have to lose out, for the sake of... what? Regenerating the profits and dividends of the bankers and the rest of the capitalist class?
This is indeed a provocation! In fact, the only "election manifesto" which working people need today is one which calls "all out", together, to stop the attacks on livelihoods and force the capitalists to pay, once and for all. The BA workers decided not to keep their heads down and be intimidated. If they can do it, so, surely, can the rest of us!