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Fleece the Fat Cats

THE GOVERNMENT have raised the national minimum wage by 10p an hour to £3.70. Previously New Labour refused to give such a rise - under 3% - for fear this would cause “a growth in inflation”!
Meanwhile Britain’s top bosses are helping themselves to rises of up to 20% on already exorbitant salaries. A new survey says that chief executives of Britain’s top companies were paid on average £752,000 a year, up 18.6% on last year, which in turn was 14.3% higher than the year before that.
Why doesn’t chancellor Brown accuse these fat cats of causing inflation?
What’s more an increasing number of these overpaid executives got share options worth over £500,000. These cosy little nest-eggs ensure that they can live in comfort off share income even if they lose their jobs.
At present the minimum wage is £3.70 an hour. Who can live on that? Why can’t low-paid workers get pay rises comparable to those which executives take for granted? If they did, the minimum wage would be at least £4.50 an hour.
Low-paid workers should get the 35% rise needed to reach many unions’ demand of a £5 an hour minimum wage.
Government figures show that even the current miserable level isn’t being enforced, due to a shortage of inspectors. Some bosses get away with fiddling their wage records to cheat workers out of what they’re entitled to.
The European Union calculates that workers need at least £7 an hour to achieve a decent standard of living. That would practically double the minimum wage. If that’s inflationary, take it out of the fat cats’ bloated salaries.
If capitalism can’t afford to give us a living wage, then we can’t afford capitalism.
* Raise the minimum wage to £5 an hour at once as a first step to the European Decency Threshold level of £7 an hour. End the exemptions for workers under 22.
* Workers’ representatives to have the right to inspect wages records without notice. Workers should be able to call an immediate stoppage without fear of dismissal in workplaces which breach minimum wage laws.

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Stop Council Cuts

BROMLEY COUNCIL'S disciplinary hearing against union activist Glenn Kelly takes place this week. They are charging him with the 'crime' of opposing council plans to cut the night care staff in sheltered accommodation.
Bill Mullins
They use phrases like “going beyond his remit as a trade union official” and “deliberately misrepresenting the council's intentions”. But after many weeks of campaigning their real intentions are now clear to the vast majority of council workers. Bromley council want to sack someone who spoke up for his members' jobs and the services they supply to the elderly.
The council want to rid themselves of a trade unionist who is a major thorn in their side. Like many other councils Bromley plan massive cuts in their November budget.
One manager was heard to say Glenn’s campaign had wrecked their chances of implementing the full £400,000 in cuts they want by getting rid of the night care staff in the sheltered homes.
Glenn has been charged with 'misrepresenting' the council's intentions. What he actually did was express an opinion that if the council has a pilot study where they have no night care staff between the hours of 9pm and 7am then their intention would be to do the same in the other five homes.
The council clearly wants to get rid of Glenn, whether or not they have a case.
Now council workers must show their willingness to take strike action in support of Glenn and to fight for their right for the best union representation.
A ballot for strike action is currently taking place and the result will be known next week. A vote for action by the workers will make this council back off like nothing else can. When the bosses are shown that they face the wrath of the wider membership they will finally get the message that they attack Glenn Kelly at their peril.

• Protest to: Jeremy Ambache, Director of Social Services, Bromley council, Civic Centre, Bromley, BR1 3UH. Fax: 020 83813 4620.
• Send messages of support to: Bromley UNISON, Civic Centre, Bromley. Tel: 020 83813 4405. Fax: 020 83813 4885.

Come to the lobby, Thursday 5 October (8.30am and 12.30pm) at Bromley Civic Centre, Stockwell Close, Bromley.

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Palestinian anger erupts

THE FALTERING Middle East 'peace process' appeared to be unravelling as Palestinians, some armed, some with rocks, fought heavily armed Israeli troops in the Gaza and occupied West Bank territories.
Dave Carr
Over 50 people, mainly Palestinians, including boys, have been killed so far and hundreds wounded as the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) deployed heavy weapons, including helicopter gunships and tanks, around Gaza City and other Palestinian Authority-controlled towns.
This is the biggest Palestinian uprising in four years, more widespread than the Intifada struggle of the 1980s.
The bloodshed has provoked a defiant response from the one million Arabs living in Israel with rioting throughout the country. The deputy mayor in the Israeli Arab town of Um al-Fahm was shot dead by police, five other Israeli Arabs have been killed. The Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon have called for a continuation of the struggle by Palestinians.
Tentative ceasefires between the Israeli government of Ehud Barak and President Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority have failed to halt the violence. Both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority blame each other for the continuing violence.
In an attempt to halt the fighting, US President Clinton promised an inquiry as well as suggesting joint Israeli/Palestinian sovereignty over Jerusalem to revive the stalled peace talks but with little immediate success.
The flashpoint to the fighting was Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to the Moslem holy site of Haram as-Sharif (the Dome of the Rock or Temple Mount as known to Jews). Sharon is leader of the right-wing Likud party and is hated by Palestinians. He was responsible, along with other members of prime minister Begin's government, for the massacre of 2,000 Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982.
This week's outpouring of Palestinian anger was more than just loathing of Sharon. It represents their frustration at the failure of the 'peace process' to make any meaningful changes to their lives. Palestinians lack their own state and most remain in desperately poor enclaves surrounded by Israeli settlements backed by the IDF.
Israel ceded just 13% of occupied land under earlier peace negotiations, but Palestinians ended up merely exchanging control by Israel for the autocratic rule of Arafat's PA.
His officials enjoy a sumptuous existence, channelling outside monies to fund their wealthy lifestyles while most Palestinians live in slums. A ruthless police force stamp on democratic rights, such as press freedom and independent trade unions.
Moreover, other issues such as the right of Palestinian refugees scattered throughout the Middle East to return, the continuing occupation of historically Palestinian-owned land by Jewish settlers and in particular the sovereignty of Jerusalem to both Israelis and Palestinians, still dog any 'final settlement' of the peace process.
These outstanding issues led to talks between Barak and Arafat collapsing at last July’s Camp David conference.
Clinton is desperate to try and resolve the outstanding 'peace' issues, hoping to secure stability for US imperialism in that region. But as the Socialist Party has consistently argued since Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo peace accord seven years ago, this deal would not secure a lasting settlement.
On the contrary, on a capitalist basis - whereby two ruling classes want to control and exploit their respective populations, land and resources - a scaling down of military hostilities can't resolve the underlying social and economic problems. The current fighting merely underlines this fundamental contradiction.
Given the deep divisions between both nationalities, the Socialist Party advocates a socialist Israel and a socialist Palestine with Jerusalem as an open city and the capital of both, and a socialist federation of the entire region.

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After the Socialist Alliance conference

ON 30 September 400 members of the Socialist Alliance met in Coventry to discuss organising a socialist challenge in the next general election.
Hannah Sell, Socialist Party National Campaigns Organiser
Three years of New Labour government has meant ever increasing cuts and privatisation. The need for the widest possible socialist challenge to New Labour in the general election is clear.

What is the Socialist Alliance?
SINCE ITS beginnings in the early 1990s, the Socialist Alliances have seen their role as attempting to enable different socialist, environmental and direct action organisations to work towards common objectives. They have recognised that there are political differences between the constituent parts of the Alliance but realised that this need not prevent us from working effectively together, provided it was on an open, consensual, democratic, federal basis.
The Alliance membership includes a number of important local campaigning organisations and alliances. However, at this stage the Alliance is overwhelmingly made up existing political organisations, the largest of which are ourselves (the Socialist Party) and the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP).

The conference
SATURDAY'S CONFERENCE was primarily to discuss how best to organise our general election challenge. The discussion was based on point-by-point amendments to an eleven point election protocol.
This protocol was a compromise which merged two previous protocols. The discussion at the conference can seem very obscure and organisational. Nonetheless, what lay behind it were important political issues about how best to build a broad socialist organisation.
In the run-up to the conference, a plan to introduce an extreme over-centralisation of the Socialist Alliance structures was raised and pushed by the SWP. This proposal was designed for a relatively homogeneous party, not a broad, federal Alliance.
If the Socialist Alliance takes the correct approach it may develop into a broad socialist party in the future. However, this would only be possible, if such a party is designed to encourage thousands of working class people to join and participate.
If the heavy-handed, centralised approach of the SWP had been implemented, far from drawing new forces into the Alliance, it would have resulted in the Alliance becoming narrow and, therefore, unable to attract fresh forces moving in a socialist direction.
Thankfully, due to Socialist Party members' pressure and the majority of independent local alliances, this proposal was withdrawn. The resolution then put to the conference was a major improvement; nonetheless some remnants of the old centralised proposal remained.
The debate at the conference was between those, ourselves and several local socialist alliances, who wanted to remove these remnants of centralisation; and those, primarily the SWP, who wanted to further centralise the Socialist Alliance.

A democratic, federal Alliance
THE ARGUMENTS that the SWP use to try and justify their position is that all political organisations must put the Alliance first and not be "sectarian" and try to build their own party. They attempt to gloss over the political differences that exist between the organisations involved in the Alliance.
This is ironic, given the reputation of the SWP for invariably adopting sectarian positions and taking a high handed, dismissive attitude to movements of working-class people.
It is also not an honest approach and is unworkable. The Socialist Party has been involved in the Alliance since its inception and we are wholeheartedly in favour of building the maximum possible unity. However, it is only possible to do so on the basis of an honest recognition of reality; that there are numerous major political differences between the component parts of the Alliance.
For example, on whether or not New Labour is a big business party, and whether or not to call for a Labour vote in the general election in areas where the Socialist Alliance isn't standing.
Our argument is that we recognise these differences and, therefore, that it is vital that the Alliance continues to organise on the principle of the united front. The means uniting the participating forces on the basis of a common platform, while allowing organisations, groups, and individuals the right to uphold their own political positions.
This is the only realistic way of building a genuine Alliance. By contrast, in reality, the SWP want to centralise the Alliance under their own control. Given that most of the groups and some of the individuals (who in most cases do not represent significant forces) support the SWP on most key issues, the protocol the SWP pushed would effectively give them control of the Alliance.

Wider Forces
IF THE Alliance organises on the democratic federal basis we propose then there will be an opportunity to mount a far wider election challenge than anything yet achieved. We should be aiming to involve the maximum number of political organisations, groups of trade unionists (such as the Campaign Against Tube Privatisation) and anti-cuts campaigners (such as the Kidderminster hospital campaign) in our election challenge. To bring such organisations on board it is vital to put the minimum number of obstacles in their path.
That is why we proposed that any organisation which agreed to a common Socialist Alliance Election Programme (to be drawn up at the Alliance's February conference), and was prepared to advertise their support for the Socialist Alliance on their election material, should be welcomed on board. We argued that every organisation should be encouraged to stand with the name "Socialist Alliance" on the ballot paper but that it could not be a condition for taking part in the election challenge.
We ourselves, are willing to stand as "Socialist Alliance" but we want to make it as easy as possible for other organisations, with their own electoral record such as the Leeds Left Alliance, to take part in an Alliance campaign. Unfortunately, the conference voted by 200 to 174 to delete the clause advocating this position from the eventual proposal put to the conference.
This means that all organisations taking part in the Alliance campaign have to put Socialist Alliance on the ballot paper. However, we appeal to those organisations who feel unable to do this to remain part of the Socialist Alliance and campaign to change the decision.
The conference also voted by 220 to 171 votes to leave the selection of candidates solely in the hands of local Alliances, albeit on the basis of negotiation with political organisations.
This opens the door to the kind of manoeuvring that took place in Lewisham during the Greater London Assembly elections, where the SWP turned out 40 people to a local alliance meeting, which they had never attended before, in order to outvote local activists.
However, a potentially disastrous motion from the International Socialist Group, to remove all rights of political parties within the Alliance, was defeated.
Importantly, we also succeeded in improving the final resolution on the issue of what body will co-ordinate the election campaign. It was passed by 196 to 193 that it should be the liaison committee, which has representation from every affiliated organisation and local alliance, rather than a far narrower body.

What next?
DESPITE THE centralised elements of the proposal agreed by the conference, the final resolution was still a considerable improvement on the original, SWP-backed, proposals. However, it was clear from the conference discussion that the SWP have not given up on their plans to try and centralise the Alliance under their control.
The resolution that was passed included a clause stating that an election protocol was "to be developed by the Election Committee". This is a blatant attempt to leave room to return to these issues in the future.
Undoubtedly, the SWP will try to reach their goal of centralising the Socialist Alliance under their control. However, they will not necessarily succeed. Publicly, the SWP try to ignore that the Socialist Party has had by far the most electoral success of any party in England and Wales. (We have four socialist councillors and are currently the only organisation in England with elected socialist public representatives).
In the last issue of their monthly magazine Socialist Review, they claim: "The best of the GLA [Greater London Assembly] votes for the LSA [London Socialist Alliance] were double the best votes that the far left gained in the 1970s, the last time there was a sustained electoral challenge from the far left."
We have to keep a sense of proportion, the London-wide vote of the LSA was 1.6%. Nonetheless, some of the local LSA votes were creditable (the highest was 7%), but this outrageously ignores not only our councillors but the fact we have stood in over 200 council seats in the last four years and received an average vote of 8.3%.
We also stood in 19 seats at the last general election. In the 1980s, as part of the Labour Party, we also had three MPs - Dave Nellist, Terry Fields and Pat Wall - all of whom were Marxists and workers' representatives on a workers' wage.
However, despite trying to write others out of history publicly, privately the SWP realise we are an important force. It is this, combined with the opposition of many local components of the Alliance, which forced them to withdraw their original protocol in the run up to Saturday's conference.
In the coming months we will be doing our best to ensure that we build on the best elements of the resolution agreed on Saturday to develop a genuinely democratic, federal and extremely successful election campaign.

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Oil Prices

On a roller coaster ride

THE RECENT tripling of crude oil prices sparked a protest wave throughout Europe. Protesters directed their anger at high fuel taxes, accounting for 72% of the pump price in Britain. Barely tolerable when oil prices were low, pump prices became intolerable as oil prices surged from $10 to over $35 a barrel.

Lynn Walsh

Despite the huge share of taxes, Blair - like Jospin in France and Schroder in Germany - blamed OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) for the price increases, demanding that they immediately cut the price of crude oil.
The politicians could not explain why OPEC producers have been restricting exports in an effort to push up prices. They are silent, too, about the shortages created by the big oil companies' long-term underinvestment and by financial speculation on international oil markets.
Why has the price of oil gone up and down like a roller coaster over the last 18 months? It's partly the anarchic working of the capitalist market. But there are also political factors: the deepening crisis in many oil-producing states and a reaction against the policies of the Western powers.
For about ten years, from the late 1980s to the late 1990s, oil prices were quite stable and relatively cheap, (about $18-$22 a barrel), apart from a short, sharp rise during the 1990-91 Gulf War. Strong demand from the advanced capitalist countries and the Asian "tigers" during 1995-97 pushed the price up to about $25 a barrel.
After 1997, however, there was a sharp fall down to $10 a barrel or less early in 1999. There was a glut of oil. The slump in Asia sharply reduced demand from that region.

World Market
On the supply side, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, two of the biggest producers, had increased their exports to grab bigger shares of the world oil market. Simultaneously, Iraq had been allowed to resume oil exports under the UN "oil-for-food" programme.
Cheap oil further lowered the West's production costs, especially in the US, boosting the big corporations' profits. It hardly benefited European petrol consumers, however, as governments steadily increased fuel taxes. But a price of $10 a barrel or less spelt disaster for many oil-producing states.
Most of them rely on earnings from oil exports to pay interest on their huge foreign debts. Some, like Indonesia, Nigeria and Venezuela were battered by turbulence from the Asian crisis. Indonesia, Nigeria, Venezuela and Mexico were all shaken by political upheavals.
Falls in oil revenues for Russia, a major oil exporter, threatened the survival of Yeltsin's regime. Even the reactionary Saudi Arabian regime faced mounting economic problems and social unrest threatened.
OPEC producers were not at all united at that time. Middle Eastern producers, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, had frequently been divided by armed conflict. Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and others habitually cheated on their OPEC quotas. Big exporters like Russia and Mexico are not members of OPEC.
In 1999, however, US imperialism's strategists became alarmed at the effects of plummeting oil prices. The Cardenas regime in Mexico was under threat, while the deepening social crisis had brought Hugo Chavez's radical government to power in Venezuela.
Committed to supporting Yeltsin, pushing up crude oil prices to boost Russia's foreign earnings from oil exports was about the only way the US could bolster his position.
Early in 1999 the US put pressure on Saudi Arabia to restrict its output and push up prices. The Saudi regime, desperate to increase its own oil income, cut back on its exports and urged other OPEC producers to do the same.
The Western powers, however, got more than they bargained for. Oil prices shot up during 1999, exceeding $30 a barrel in March 2000. Apart from OPEC cuts, the Iraqi regime suspended its oil-for-food sales late in 1999. Only when the price went above $30 did Saddam resume sales.
This March, the US again intervened to demand that Saudi Arabia and OPEC increase their exports to bring the price down. At its meeting in Vienna, OPEC agreed to higher export quotas but so far, this has had only a limited effect on prices.
The key oil producers are still very reluctant to flood the market and suffer another catastrophic decline in income.
The campaign for higher prices is led by Venezuela, which currently holds the OPEC presidency. Chavez's position reflects the deepening crisis in all the underdeveloped countries. Oil accounts for 70% of Venezuela's exports, 60% of the government's tax revenues.
For every dollar the price per barrel falls, the country loses $1 billion (£700 million) a year. "We don't want prices to drop below their present level," Chavez said in August: "Lower prices would be like passing a death sentence on ourselves and our people."

Profits Squeezed
EVEN AFTER OPEC agreed to increase exports, oil prices kept rising, going above $37 in September. Some OPEC representatives and oil industry experts even dispute whether there has been a shortage of crude oil at all.
They blame the price rise on the chaotic international oil market, the oil industry's inadequate infrastructure, and on escalating financial speculation in oil markets.
With low crude oil prices squeezing their profit margins, the big oil companies have been very reluctant to invest in new refinery capacity and transportation facilities. "There's no big shortage of crude oil," said a senior European trader. "There's a refinery capacity problem, especially in the US, and there's a logistical problem." (Financial Times, 11 September)
The world's tanker fleet has been operating at 97% of capacity and US oil refineries have been running flat out, which doesn't suggest a shortage of crude.
When oil companies' profits were squeezed by low oil prices, they were unwilling to invest in increased capacity to keep up with surging demand.
They see recent price rises as a short-term trend, expecting that longer-term prices will decline. Why stock up now if it will be cheaper to buy later? Consequently, US fuel stocks are at their lowest for 24 years.
Desperately trying to cushion the oil crisis's impact on the 7 November presidential elections, Clinton announced he was releasing 30 million barrels from the US's 571 million barrel strategic petroleum reserve, and increasing federal aid for families' heating fuel by $400 million.
His prompt action was in marked contrast to Blair's refusal to make any concessions on fuel prices. Whether 30 million barrels will be enough to guarantee supplies this winter remains to be seen. It's possible that, if the US keeps drawing on the strategic reserve, OPEC will make further cuts in output to sustain higher prices.
Fuel shortages in the West have been aggravated by intensive financial speculation in oil commodity markets: "The oil price has gone from $10 to $35 a barrel yet production has only altered by around 3% [says a London oil trader]. The market is not functioning properly..." (Daily Telegraph, 14 September)
"The paper markets have driven the price up," commented an oil company trader. (Financial Times, 12 September). The "paper market" refers to the trading of futures (contracts to buy future consignments and "derivatives"). The futures market is intended to "hedge' or insure against future rises/falls in oil prices. But like other "hedge" markets they have themselves become a volatile, speculative market.

Capitalist Chaos
THE OIL crisis reflects the chaos and conflict of world capitalism. In the producing states of the underdeveloped countries, oil has enriched the ruling classes, financed militarisation and wars, but failed to solve the deep-seated social crisis inflicting the people of these states.
The biggest profits from oil, however, go to the giant oil companies which dominate the industry, and especially to the traders and speculators.
In the advanced countries, oil should be used in the most efficient, environmentally-friendly way possible. Oil revenues should also be used to provide decent conditions of life for the majority of people in the oil-producing states.
This will never happen under capitalism, which is motivated by the pursuit of profit. Moreover, oil is always used by states as a weapon in pursuit of power and prestige.
The oil crisis shows the need for the public ownership of oil production, transportation, refining, and distribution. Then oil, together with natural gas and other renewable energy sources, could be used in a planned way to meet society's needs, not fuel big corporations' profits.
We should take into public ownership the handful of giant oil companies which dominate the world petroleum industry. Only the planned development of oil reserves and distribution will eliminate the perpetual cycle of shortage and glut, and the destabilising fluctuation of prices.
The "oil shock" is not yet as serious as the trebling (in inflation-adjusted terms) of oil prices in 1973, which triggered the 1974-75 world slump. World Bank and IMF economists predict that higher oil prices will cut between 0.5% and 0.75% from world growth in the coming year. But this is a minimum estimate.
Dearer oil is bound to cut across growth and cut the big corporations' profits. Higher consumer spending on fuel will cut overall consumer spending, which has been the locomotive of economic growth, especially in the USA.
"Historically," comments professor Andrew Oswald of Warwick University, "sharp rises in the price of energy have always been the best predictor of a slump to come." (Observer, 3 September)
The wave of fuel-price protests in Europe are a foretaste of the political upheavals which will accompany the coming turmoil in the world economy.



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A blow to the crisis-ridden Euro

THE FIRST referendum on the Euro currency in any European country ended in a clear rejection: 53.1% against and 46.9% for. With an 88% turnout, it was a major defeat for Denmark's social democratic government, the establishment parties and big business, which all campaigned for the Yes vote.

Per Ake Westerlund, Rattviseparteit, (CWI -Sweden)

Social Democratic leader, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, was close to tears as he faced the media. The result is a blow to the European Union's (EU) plans and the crisis-ridden Euro.
Even though several thousand young people met in Denmark's capital, Copenhagen, singing 'international solidarity', the racist and nationalist Dansk Folkeparti (DF - Danish People's Party) was declared the winner.
But in reality it was low-paid workers that defeated the Danish ruling elite. The biggest issue was the welfare state not Danish nationalism. Defence of the public sector and pensions became the most important reason for voting No.
"It is not a right-wing, but a sceptical left-wing which stands behind the No majority", commented the Spanish news agency, EFE.
Women workers are among the most Euro-sceptical and this is connected with women's dependence on public-sector services. The Economist magazine also commented that Denmark's "exceptionally generous welfare state" was a more important factor than the nationalistic or sovereignty arguments from the No side.
A majority of rank-and-file trade unionists voted No, even though the Yes campaign was backed by LO (Denmark's TUC). During the final week of the campaign, 800 childcare workers were on strike in Copenhagen against cuts proposed by the Social Democratic-led council.
There was massive support for the Yes campaign from politicians (80% of MPs), economists, trade union leaders, and media (46 of the 48 daily newspapers). But Tine Br¿ndrum, LO vice-chair, commented after visiting low-paid women factory workers that "their starting point was that politicians are cheating, that they are not telling the truth".
The Yes campaign zigzagged from threats to promises. Rasmussen said pensions would be safeguarded for 45 years - an impossible promise he was forced to retract. This climbdown meant that the threat to pensions was taken even more seriously! People wondered what other reforms were threatened.
In the final week the five Yes parties buried their differences in favour of a common campaign. This only strengthened the distrust towards them.
Rasmussen and his party are at an all-time low in opinion polls. The big problem is the lack of political alternatives.
SF (Socialistisk Folkeparti - Socialist People's Party that stands to the left of the Social Democrats) has left open the option of changing its position on the Euro - one wing actually campaigned for a Yes vote.
The other side of the current economic upswing - increasing inequality and lost security at work - has to find an expression. Both DF and SF have gained in opinion polls.
Despite international media attention on DF leader, Pia Kjaersgaard, support for DF fell during the summer. And although the latest opinion polls show DF on 12%, this is below their record 15% showing in January.
DF-type parties around Europe, however, will celebrate this result and will raise their anti-EU profile. The referendum will have repercussions throughout the EU: Sweden and Britain are now further away from the Euro than ever.
The Euro's crisis could deepen. Having recently spent billions shoring up the sinking Euro, the US, German and British central banks may be forced to buy more of the ailing currency to stop the ever-widening exchange rate with the dollar.
The referendum has also demonstrated the political vacuum existing throughout Europe. The search for an alternative will lead many people - especially young people protesting against global capitalism and workers striking against cuts - to turn towards a socialist alternative.

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