Got any plans for Saturday? I’ll be marching, alongside Unite members from Scotland setting off at 10pm the night before. I’ll be marching with mums and their kids from the Burtons biscuit factory, the last manufacturer on the Wirral, now marked for closure after 50 years. I’ll be marching alongside BA cabin crew who know what it is like to fear for their jobs. With Southampton council workers, not well paid as it is but told to lose 5 per cent more or lose their jobs. With the speech therapists who help children find their voice but face imminent unemployment. With council workers from Birmingham soon to be put on ‘master and servant’ contracts. And I’ll be marching with NHS professionals and patients furious about what this Government is doing – with no mandate – to our health service.
Ordinary people, coming to the capital in their thousands, are not convinced that cuts are the cure. They are angry that making 1.3 million people unemployed is being presented as the map to economic recovery. They want to know why, with Britain’s debt lower than that of competitor countries such as France, the United States and even Europe’s powerhouse Germany, panic cuts are being made which will contract the economy further and stifle recovery. They want to know why the lights are going off in their community centres. Why are shops shutting on their high streets? Why their kids can’t get an education or a job? Why they will have to work longer and retire on less? Why, for the first time in generations, will our children be worse off?
When, in 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed under the weight of its own greed, did anyone envisage that, three years later the elderly, the sick, young people, our friends and neighbours would be handed the bill for their party? Certainly, as banks dish out billions in bonuses to their top earners, it seems as if they’ve not just heeded Bob Diamond’s exhortation to stop apologising for their colossal errors (although I missed it if they ever did – perhaps they just speak quietly), they’re shouting from their rooftops that it is back to unregulated business as usual. Between them, the Barclays’ boss and his counterpart at the state-aided RBS picked up more than £15 million in bonuses. Two men share in colossal wealth while millions of workers struggle. Three hundred employees at RBS earn more than £1 million each. Yet over 150,000 workers in councils across the country have already lost their jobs. How is this fair?
Myths and economic half-truths have been peddled with more relish by the Tories, who can’t see a public service without wishing to hand it to Capita. To claim that the nation’s credit card has been maxed out is ridiculous. Yes, these are tough times. Yes, we need to address economic problems. But to compare the enforced need to avert a banking catastrophe to a Saturday shopping blitz is just insulting. When a roomful of teenagers at our youth rally roundly boo a Government minister, a Liberal Democrat, every time this patronising metaphor fell from her lips, you know that disdain runs deep.
The deficit has grown because the global crash shrunk the economy. It makes no sense to shrink it further. National finances are not like a household’s finances. They can and should be managed over the long term, not paid off fully in four years and to hell with the social consequences.
For those who genuinely hoped that the Lib Dems would rein in the Tories’ nastier instincts, the coalition’s junior partner’s unthinking acceptance of the Osborne doctrine is an abuse of their faith. Those 17 Lib Dems bedazzled by office seem more than happy to wear the free market yoke. But what of the 40 or so Lib Dems in the House of Commons or the councillors across the country who are soon to face the voters? Why are they going along with plans that shatter our social architecture and will impoverish so many?
The Government is trying to scare us. Yes, debt is expensive and, without a plan to manage it, it causes problems for countries. But Britain’s debt is manageable and, in the context of the past 60 years, is not especially high. It is the plan part that is the problem. At least three Nobel laureates and an array of global economic experts have rounded on the Government’s strategy. If they are not convinced that the road to recovery ought to be built on the backs of the jobless, then why is the Chancellor – a man who has never held a job of any note before gaining high office? Even his best friends would admit his only qualification to manage the nation’s money is his lifelong acquaintance with pots of private wealth.
And how many times must it be said: we are not all in this together. According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, the poorest will suffer the most as a result of the spending and benefit changes. Single pensioners, single parents, low-waged workers and middle-earning families will suffer most of all. The top earners will feel little pain. What little they do feel is only because of the tax on high earnings pushed through in the final days of the last Labour Government. Living standards are being forced into reverse. In terms of outcomes, the only thing we can say with certainty about Osborne’s “plan” is that Britain will become a broken, more divided nation. Attacking services puts horrific strain on the people who need them. Shutting services wrecks communities.
Get more people working, more houses built, keep our services functioning – then the deficit will reduce. Forge a new economy, one built on real jobs with manufacturing at its heart. End the fixation with the finance industry. For too long, there has been a transfer of wealth from the poorest in this country to the richest. Real wealth and economic strength come not from ensuring an easy life for tax-phobic corporations and a super-rich elite, but from decent jobs, strong services, fair taxes and a diverse, innovative economy.
There is a better way. That mean jobs and a future without fear, a decent education for all our children, no wasteful privatisations, a NHS safe in public hands, houses we can call home, decent wages, fair taxes and an economy for all. Closing tax loopholes could raise £40 billion each year – this could keep youth services alive and thriving well into the next century, not gone for good by winter. A Robin Hood tax on financial transactions could raise £20 billion a year. Between them, these two simple measures could raise £60 billion.
How the Government reacts to the cries of the ordinary people of this country this weekend will be instructive. The most zealous Cabinet members will brush off the demonstration. The likes of Michael Gove and Eric Pickles will rush to the cameras saying that it does not matter how many we bring to London, they will push on regardless. They enjoy the war and they don’t care about the casualties.
Is this what the Lib Dems had in mind when they took office – that within months the capital would grind to a halt as a river of protest threads its way to Hyde Park? Those Lib Dems who stand for progressive politics should hang their heads in shame, but will they have the guts to stand up and say: enough.
My hope is that they do. My biggest wish for this country is that the Lib Dems come to their senses, snap out of their delusionary state and see the Conservative Party for what it is – arch privateers, servants of the super-rich, not able to govern for the nation. When they do, and when they look around for another way, there will be place for them with us, on the streets, marching for an alternative.
So don’t get deceived, get active. Last year, just 6p in every pound of public spending went towards paying off the debt. In 1998, it was 8p. The deficit is now a problem because we
had to bail out the banks by hundreds of billions of pounds. Cuts are not the cure. Making 1.3 million people jobless starves the country of revenue. George Osborne’s cuts
will cost every man, woman and child in the country £1,000.
Len McCluskey is general secretary of Unite
