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ARCHIVE
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10/12/2009
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 Convention of the Left Event |
New Labour's pre-Budget report is the shot that starts a war. While FTSE 100 bosses took an average pay rise of 7.9% in the last year, public sector workers are told to expect pay cuts. A 1% rise when inflation is expected to be between 2-3% is a cut. This is the beginning of the attack on our public services.
The FTSE 100 bosses need their rise. While civil servants can start on a wage of £13,000 per year, Chip Goodman of BHP Billiton got £16million last year. Frank Chapman of the BG Group received £23million. In the 'underperformers', the companies that have gambled badly in the current recession, the average senior salary is £4million. Bankers that gambled and lost were bailed out with tax payers' money to the tune of £800 billion and their debts taken on by the government. These debts amount to over £2trillion yet over 5,000 senior bankers receive salaries in excess of £1million and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) want to give bonuses to themselves (presumably for passing the buck successfully).
Why are public sector workers being singled out and public services threatened when the debt does not relate to these areas? It is all about tax avoidance by the rich; companies that cannot pay tax because the recession is so severe and stupid projects such as nuclear power, Trident, the European Fighter Aircraft and hopeless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
New Labour fiddles while the country burns. Taking over 80% of RBS should have meant full nationalization and control of the bank to ensure our money kept people in their jobs. Instead, a severe credit crunch was allowed to develop. Even if you believe the official figures, more than 2.5million people are now jobless. Those in work now find their National Insurance will rise while the richest remain appallingly undertaxed. Since 1988, more than £15billion per year has been lost to lower taxes for the very richest in society.
The Respect Party opposes the public sector pay squeeze and the public service cuts. We believe that the banks should be nationalized with full control passing to the government and a major investment programme launched to create jobs and improve the tax income of the country. We believe that public sector pensions should not be attacked but the richest ordered to pay their share rather than the incredible litany of tax avoidance measures.
The Respect Party views a government composed of people who claim the most outrageous expenses, including bell towers, plasma TVs and house painting (wouldn't you like to have a summer house?) as morally bankrupt and incapable of delivering anything that will help the majority of our society. This self-interest must be ended.
Whoever wins the next election all the main parties are all promising to slash our services to the bone. A vote for Tory, Liberal or New Labour will just encourage them to cut even faster and even deeper. Backing Respect candidates or one of the other credible left candidates standing in the coming election - from Respect's own George Galloway, Salma Yaqoob or Abjol Miah, to the Green Party's Caroline Lucas or Labour left-wingers like John McDonnell or Jeremy Corbyn - will be the best way to say no to cuts.
If the pre-budget report was the opening salvo in the General Election campaign, then it should also mark to start of our campaign to defend public services.