Olympics fever is finally over. The fireworks and glittering stuff have been put aside. Now, the Olympic site lies empty, with its costly publicly-funded white elephants.
At the Team-GB parade in London, Cameron had a last chance to catch the media spotlight and win applause from a selected audience, to make up for the unceremonious booing rightfully earned by his henchman, Osborne, at the Paralympics. But the days when these politicians hoped to use a bit of grandiose ceremony and hysterical flag-waving, to divert attention from their lurching crisis, are over.
While volunteers may just be returning with some regrets to the daily grind of their lives, most of the tens of thousands of temps hired for the Games will be returning to the dole queue.
The crisis has returned to front-stage, with a vengeance. More urgently than ever, the bosses' attacks against the working class and the austerity policy of their politicians need to be countered.
Fiery speeches, not much behind them
It was against this backdrop that this year's TUC conference started on September 9th.
Just like last year, union leaders' keynote speeches are calling for "co-ordinated strike action". Only this time, instead of confining themselves to the issue of public sector pensions, they want to focus this "co-ordinated action" on pay - against the public sector's 3-year wage freeze and the government's threat to introduce regional pay bargaining.
It's certainly about time pay was put at the top of the union agenda. But what about jobs? It seems that union leaders still do not consider that the hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs under threat - and the resulting cuts in services - are worth fighting for!
As to going beyond the fiery talk and resolutions calling for "co-ordinated strike action" from the conference platform, that's quite another thing.
Despite already having a mandate for strike action from its members, the teachers' union (NUT) has chosen to call for a work-to-rule from the end of this month - the most ineffective way of using its industrial muscle, since it is difficult to organise and won't even allow teachers to show their strength in the streets.
Meanwhile unions like Unison and the GMB are clearly more concerned with their planned merger to form a public sector "mega-union", than with concentrating on the urgent need to organise a fightback against the ConDems' austerity.
It seems that, leaving aside the mass protests planned by the TUC on October 20th - which should be, at least, an opportunity for all workers to voice their demands - strike action is already shelved until next Spring! In the meantime, public sector workers are supposed to tighten their belts in silence and look the other way when their workmates get the sack!
Setting our own agenda
Unite leader Len McCluskey let the cat out of the bag when he told TUC delegates: "I see the issue of strikes and protests actually increasing as we move closer and closer to a general election. It is the only way democracy can work when huge numbers of people disagree with what the government is doing."
So, for all his militant talk about strikes in the public sector, McCluskey ties workers conditions to the outcome of the 2015 general election - and, presumably, to Labour coming back into office. And this, just as Labour's shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, is heckled by delegates for endorsing the ConDems' attacks on public sector wages!
But then, should anyone be surprised? While the likes of McCluskey talk tough about public sector wages - without proposing much in the way of action - they have nothing to say to the majority of the workers who are in the private sector. Worse, haven't the private sector wings of unions like Unite and the GMB, endorsed deals involving wage and pension cuts for new recruits in many big private companies - as they did at Ford and Vauxhall?
So, yes, the working class needs to take "co-ordinated strike action", not just in the public sector but across all industries, public and private. It needs to build up its collective strength around common demands that can unite its ranks - a general wage increase across the board with decent pay for all, living pensions and all job cuts to be made illegal and all available work to be shared out between all available hands.
These demands should be the basis for an emergency fighting programme for the working class, one that needs to be fought for now!