Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials, 3 April 2007

What is striking about the hoo-hah between Brown and the CBI is that everyone remains totally silent over the responsibility of the companies themselves in running down occupational pension schemes in the first place.

Maybe Brown should not have claimed he had the agreement of the CBI when he removed the tax relief from these funds. But it is a bit "rich" that the CBI should be complaining today that the government acted against its "advice", when compliance with the CBI's whims is the hallmark of Blair's government!

When Brown took this measure in 1997, pension funds had been accruing huge amounts from financial speculation. At that time it was estimated that pension funds had a £60bn surplus. But companies had nevertheless continued to take pension contribution holidays - thus never putting back into the pension funds what they owed.

What is more, those who criticise Brown for de facto slapping a tax on the gains from financial speculation by pension funds fail to mention the fact that this included all kinds of institutions which had nothing to do with pensions, including speculative asset management funds, used by the rich in order to benefit from the rebates enjoyed by pensions.

In any case, financial speculation is financial speculation - whoever resorts to it - and it should attract the same level of tax, regardless. In that sense, Brown had a valid case when he supposedly placed what is now called a "stealth tax" on companies' pension fund dividends or, as others put it, when he "raided" them.

No, if Brown is guilty, it is because of what he did not do. That is, force companies to put back into occupational schemes the surpluses which they had stolen from them over the previous years - when financial markets were breaking all records.

Not only did he fail to make this repayment compulsory, but he did nothing to stop companies from taking yet more pension contribution holidays - including in the case of state-controlled institutions, like Royal Mail, which still has a large black hole.

Moreover, if there is a deficit today in occupational pension funds, it is due to the fact that they were - and are - used as gambling devices, vulnerable to stock market crashes, instead of being based on a system which represents the solidarity between generations.

Anyway, it is definitely the case today that the looting of occupational pension funds has been a major factor in creating the present deficit and that the real culprits are the shareholders who have been lining their own pockets out of our contributions. What was taken by the tax system was just petty cash compared to what they took. But of course, Brown would never dare to lay such an accusation at the door of his masters.

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Falklands War, Tony Blair has "saluted the courage" of Thatcher in deciding to send British forces to reclaim the islands for "Britain".

The 255 British soldiers and sailors, the 3 Falkland islanders and the 649 Argentinians who died as a result of Thatcher's "courage" cannot be summoned in judgement over this war, of course.

Indeed, in comparison to 136 British troops killed so far over 3 years of Blair's war in Iraq, the Falklands' death toll says a lot about the ferocity of that conflict which lasted only 3 months.

Contrary to the official version, the Falklands war had nothing to do with protecting the rights of the islanders. Thatcher did not give a damn about them.

This war was primarily aimed at demonstrating - with the full backing of the USA and Ronald Reagan - that no country should dare to challenge the rule and "world order" of the rich imperialist powers. Not even if, as was the case with the Falklands, these few rocks in Atlantic ocean actually, by rights and by geography, belonged to Argentina. Anyway, victory against Galtieri's weak forces was assured.

Thatcher used the war to "regain" not only these wind-swept islands, where sheep and penguins outnumber people (who were and are dependent on the Argentinian mainland anyway), but to regain her political advantage at home. And she was helped by a supine political "opposition" and jingoistic media, which was banned from reporting on the real horrors of this absurd war at the time.

Today, Blair no doubt wishes that the glorification of the pointless Falklands carnage will somehow give his Iraq catastrophe some kind of credibility. But it cannot and will not.