As was widely predicted, the Con-Dems' "emergency budget" contains systematic attacks against the jobs and standard of living of the working class.
But it is also an exercise in cynical arrogance. Why should we, workers, tighten our belts in order to fill the black hole left by the capitalists, when, in the same budget, this government is handing out more public money to the very same capitalists?
Ironically this is the very point that Labour's frontbenchers seized upon to criticise this budget - ironically because such cynical bias in favour of the capitalist class has been a feature of every budget under Labour, especially since the crisis broke out. Ironically too, because many of Osborne's attacks on working class people were already part of Labour's own plans.
The rich and their golden yacht
The "we're all in the same boat"story is definitely running out of steam. The capitalists may be riding the waves of the crisis, but in a luxury yacht with Cameron at its helm - not in our raft!
With the 4% cut in corporation tax which Osborne has added to the bosses' profits, they can now look forward to a comfortable £7bn bounty!
Any claim that this cut in corporation tax will be paid for by his tax on the banks' balance sheets would be a lie. Doesn't Osborne himself reckon that the bank tax will only bring in a petty £2bn? Not only is this a pittance compared to the current profits of the big banks and to the hundreds of billions they received from Brown, but it is nowhere near the handouts he announced for the rich.
Indeed this is not the end of the gift list for the wealthy. For instance, bosses will, on paper, still pay the 1% NI contribution rise decided by Labour. But by using an accounting trick, they will no longer have to pay any contributions on the wages of 650,000 workers - although these workers will still have to pay theirs, at the increased rate.
Likewise, CGT, the tax on financial speculation, is increased to 28% (still below the higher rate of income tax) but not for those who manage to pay income tax on less than £37,000 a year; for them the 18% rate still applies. In other words, those who can afford tax accountants, can disguise their income into capital gains and pay less tax than their employees. But then, this is a tax avoidance system that was developed by Labour and is now preserved by Cameron. Nothing changes!
Added to that is a host of tax cuts supposedly designed to boost "entrepreneurship", but whose main object is to cut labour costs for the bosses or open new loopholes for them to pay less tax.
The real cuts on the agenda
Not all the coalition's plans concerning the rest of us have been spelt out so far.
Of course, much emphasis was put on the increase in the income tax allowance which is said to take 880,000 people out of the income tax net - meaning that they presently are earning between £129 and £149 a week! And these ministers, who earn at least 20 times that, want us to be grateful?
But this is a con anyway. Because whatever gain working people may make as a result, will be more than eaten up by the 20% VAT increase which, once again, will affect working class families proportionally far more than the wealthy. On top of this comes Labour's 1% rise in NI contributions, which we will pay in full - meaning a wage cut.
However, the real big cuts are elsewhere, in the total £76 billion of public expenditure cuts announced in this budget - including £46 billion which had already been decided by Brown in his March budget.
Once again, Osborne was careful not to give too many details on how he plans to achieve these cuts. He only said that this means cutting the expenditure of every department by 25%, (at least this is what he says today, but who knows about tomorrow?) except for the NHS and Education.
Among the few indications he gave was that £11 billion of these cuts are meant to come from reducing the real value of pensions and benefits and limiting claims. This means that the poorest and most vulnerable are now first in the line of fire!
In March, it was estimated that Labour's 20% departmental cuts would result in half-a-million job cuts across the public sector. How many more stand to be cut as a result of Osborne's additional 5%? And what do these cuts mean, except another big rise in unemployment and more job cuts elsewhere, due to reduced consumption.
Today, the capitalists and their politicians are threatening to cause a social catastrophe. But what does it matter to them, so long as their profits and privileges are well protected? The rest of us, however, are really "all in it together", all sections of the working class faced with the same intolerable threat - one that we must not tolerate.