Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, very conveniently found a financial “black hole” in the public finances when she stepped into Jeremy Hunt’s shoes. She claimed it was a big shock. So, said Reeves, there was no choice but to make big cuts... and since the “black hole” is due to the Tories’ mess, she cannot be blamed for this. Nor for her “tough choice” to leave the NHS underfunded and in a collapsed state.
For his part, Starmer took the opportunity of the Trades Union Congress annual get-together - which always opens conference season - to address delegates over his government’s “difficult decisions”. He said that he intends to provide the right sort of environment for the bosses, so that they will start to “grow the economy”; also known as “them growing even richer”... And how else but at the expense of the rest of us?
Of course. And beyond that is the general context: the global crisis of the capitalist system, in which all the politicians in power are making similar choices in favour of the capitalists’ greed, by cutting public and social spending, impoverishing their working classes and, some would say, providing political space for the far-right.
Protecting the rich
Reeves and Starmer had already been building up to this “tough choices” scenario while in opposition. During the election campaign, they wined and dined London City’s bankers and CEOs. This provided an explicit preview of who was and who was not going to be targeted as soon as they got into government.
Indeed, there was no way that the pillars of capitalist society - or, looked at another way, the parasites who live on the surplus value created entirely by the working class - were going to be fleeced, as they could or should be!
No indeed. “Toughness” is reserved for use against the poorest, who anyway, are no longer considered to be Labour’s electorate. Let us remember: abstention was a record high on 4 July election day, as were votes for independents and others... In fact it’s probably only a matter of time before “Labour” leaders propose a name change!
Reeves had scarcely put her feet under Number 10's Cabinet table before the announcement came that pensioners’ fuel allowance of £200-300 a year (currently paid to all those over state pension age) would be her first target, to recoup (just) £1.3bn for the Treasury! She claims this to be an essential first cut to “stabilize the economy”!
Some Labour backbenchers pointed out that taking money out of the pockets of the elderly wouldn’t be a “good look” for the government. Already last winter the elderly poor had to choose between heating and eating. But Starmer and Reeves stuck to their guns - aimed literally at 10m pensioners.
In fact as Starmer told the TUC, if his toughness makes him unpopular, so be it! When 7 Labour MPs voted for an SNP amendment back in July, to abolish the 2-child benefit cap, he had no qualms over suspending them for 6 months. As for the vote over the winter fuel allowance, even though in the end, 53 Labour MPs abstained and one voted for the Tory(!) amendment to keep it, his government “won” it easily by 120 votes.
But surely that’s anti-labour?
Starmer and Reeves claim they are merely bringing in “means-testing” for the allowance. Because now, instead of all pensioners (in England, Wales and Northern Ireland) getting it, only poor pensioners (i.e., those eligible for so-called pension credit) will qualify. Never mind that the threshold for pension credit eligibility is so low (an income under £218.15 per week) that the 1.4m who receive it, remain dirt poor. And now an estimated 3m elderly, just above the threshold, won’t get any allowance at all.
Starmer told TUC conference that he “sees” the problems, but has a “mandate for economic stability” which he refuses to “risk”. Yes, a “mandate” from the less than 20% of the electorate who actually gave Labour its vote! Nevertheless, Labour ministers are fully committed to using the perverse outcome of the election to force austerity down working class throats at the behest of business leaders, with whom Starmer now boasts of a “new, positive relationship”.
Union leaders applauded Starmer and patted him on the back. No surprise there: workers are still paying for the sell-outs these guys signed up to after the 2022 strikes. And the pay-out for train drivers, apparently a sign of Starmer “caving in to unions” is in fact yet another sell-out: a deal which gives an average of 2% per year “rise” (it’s backdated to 2019), while even official CPI inflation sits at 3.1%.
Of course, it’s true that Labour could “tax the rich”, as one or two TUC delegates shouted out, during his speech. Except Starmer already said he won’t. As for the famous “£22bn Tory black hole”, didn’t Reeves and the rest of Labour vote for the Tories’ tax cut in April, which - by coincidence - cut almost exactly £22bn out of state finances?