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Fed Up With Labour's Empty Promises?
Vote For A Socialist Alternative
LABOUR still haven't delivered on their previous unambitious election pledges but they now want us to
swallow five new key pledges in good faith. After four years in power many working-class people know Labour won't deliver but want an alternative.
Hundreds of socialist candidates are putting a working-class socialist alternative to Labour's empty promises.
Pensions
Labour says it will keep the pensioners' winter fuel payment and raise the minimum wage to £4.20.
Socialists will fight for a £7 an hour minimum wage, a 35-hour week, for an immediate 50% increase in pensions, and a £280 a week minimum income for all.
Schools
Labour says it wants 10,000 extra teachers and higher standards in schools.
Socialists campaign for free, good quality education for all from nursery to university with a living grant. This means providing many more full-time teachers, with shorter working hours and lower class sizes than Labour's plans allow for. We also say tuition fees should be abolished now.
Health
Labour pledges 20,000 more nurses and 10,000 extra doctors in a reformed NHS.
Socialists argue for an immediate £20 billion cash injection into the NHS to make it free at the point of use and rebuild it under democratic public control. Labour is not even promising for the new nursing posts to be full-time positions.
Inner city poverty
Labour wants 6,000 more police to tackle drugs and crime.
Socialists say use that money to provide proper jobs for young people and rebuild run-down inner-city areas. End police harassment and bring them under democratic local control.
The future
Labour wants to deliver economic stability with low mortgages, low inflation and no return to boom and bust.
Socialists want a socialist society and economy run to meet the needs of all while protecting the environment. This means taxing the wealthy and big business while taking into public ownership the top 150 companies that dominate the economy under democratic working-class control and management.
Join us and campaign for Socialist Party, Socialist Alliance and Scottish Socialist Party candidates. Every vote for them shows Blair's New Labour how much working-class people are looking for a Socialist Alternative to Labour's pitiful pledges.
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Tuition fees no way!
Fight Threats To Non-Payers
COVENTRY UNIVERSITY has backed down from its threat to carry out mass exclusions of students for non-payment of fees.
Naomi Byron, Save Free Education (SFE)
Despite agreements with the student union and Socialist Councillor Rob Windsor that they would be sympathetic to students having difficulty paying, the university made a press statement last week threatening to exclude 625 students from the university.
200 students at the University of Central England in Birmingham are facing the same threat, which was on the front page of the Coventry Evening Telegraph and on national BBC radio.
Hundreds of students at Coventry University are being blocked from the library, computers and other university facilities because of non-payment of fees. Again, despite agreements to take no action against students till late May, the university suddenly blocked students without warning in early April - just as they were leaving for their Easter break.
Coventry University now appear to have backed down from exclusions under pressure. They are threatening non-payers with not marking exam papers unless fees are paid within seven days of the end of exams. If students pay before September, the university says they will mark them then.
This is a big concession, further than Coventry University have been prepared to go before, but their sanctions are still harming the education of hundreds of students with financial problems.
Socialist Students, backed by Rob Windsor and Dave Nellist, are campaigning to end all sanctions against non-payers.
The reality is fees are becoming unworkable, especially for the universities with higher proportions of students from working class and lower income backgrounds. Dr Mike Goldstein, vice-chancellor of Coventry University, has said that " . . . there is plenty of evidence to suggest that tuition fees do not work."
Pressure must now be put on the government to scrap the fees nightmare.
For more info contact SFE, 020 8558 7947 PO Box 858, London E11 1YG, or go to www.grantsnotfees.org.uk
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Taxing our patience
THE FIRST week of election campaigning has been dominated by arguments over public spending. Hague's arguments about "tax cuts being an idea whose time has come" - hoping to emulate George W Bush - will jar with millions of working-class people who experience daily how seriously underfunded essential public services such as health and education are.
Indeed, the Tories' hidden agenda to make such deep cuts to allow for £20 billion tax cuts within four years will cause many public-sector workers nightmares. Hague's planned cuts would slash health spending by a third for example.
Blair called Hague's deluded economics Hagueonomics. Yet, the proposals of either party could be called Vagueonomics.
In all advanced capitalist countries the debate about what level of public spending can be sustained has been ongoing. In Italy, the issue of whether or not the state can continue to provide current pension levels dominated the recent general election.
In order to maintain their neo-liberal, pro-capitalist policies both Labour and Tories are not prepared to increase public spending. Both parties want to reduce the tax burden on big business and the wealthy while providing less services through the state. That's why the Institute for Fiscal Studies warns Labour's financial plans will hit a 'Black Hole' in 2003-2004; then they will have to decide whether to increase taxes further or make big cuts in government spending.
The Tory argument of 'you paid the money where are the services?' is already striking a chord amongst many. But, their alternative slogan for this election should really warn that under Hague, as under Bush, you may get tax cuts if you are wealthy enough but there won't be any services.
Privatisation
The tax and public spending plans of both parties are seriously flawed because they try to give the impression that they can provide decent public services without spending more. That's why both Labour and Tories hope to pass off the responsibility through greater privatisation of public services.
Labour has only managed to meet its NHS waiting list targets by paying the private sector to perform 25,000 operations in three months. Over £1 billion per year is spent in hiring agency staff - about half of which goes straight to the agencies - because of acute staffing shortages in the NHS.
The experience of where services have been privatised shows that corners are cut to make more profits and the quality of service deteriorates.
Labour has dismally failed to improve public services. That's because they have continued the Thatcherite cuts policies developed in the previous 18 years of Tory government.
This culture has bitten so deep that senior civil servants say their departments are undercutting government spending allowances because they got out of the habit of spending.
A report on Labour's provision of public services that was due to be published recently was suppressed by government spin doctors because it was so damning. Leaked documents obtained by the Observer say that Blair personally intervened to shelve the report.
Wealth tax
He wanted to suppress before the election this report that shows "Britain's schools, hospitals, criminal justice system and core services lacked 'sufficient, sustained investment', suffered from staff shortages, low pay and poor leadership and let down their users."
Public spending in Britain at 39% of economic output is low compared to other European countries, which spend nearly 10% more of output. Yet, British workers are taxed just as heavily through indirect 'stealth' taxes as their European counterparts but suffer far worse services.
This is because £80 billion worth of tax cuts made during Thatcher and Major's reign were mainly used to redistribute lots of cash to the wealthy.
These obscene handouts should be taken back through a wealth tax.
Combine that with taking the major companies that dominate the British economy into public ownership under working-class control and management, then there could be massive investment in public services of hundreds of billions of pounds and money to spare for tax cuts for working-class people.
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Major parties leave students in debt
A SURVEY for the Times Higher Education Supplement shows massive opposition to tuition fees and the abolition of the grant.
Kieran Roberts
63% of those surveyed believed that tuition fees and repayable loans deterred people from applying for university. 73% thought that maintenance grants should be reintroduced.
Few students hold out much hope that any of the main parties will reverse the trend of ever-spiralling debts. They know that previous governments, Tory and New Labour, are directly responsible for the massive debts, averaging £12,000, which students incur.
One of New Labour's first acts in government was to announce that the grant was going and they were introducing tuition fees. This has forced thousands of students off their courses because they cannot afford to pay their fees.
New Labour certainly don't promise students any change in direction. True, they ruled out university-imposed top-up fees, but David Blunkett clearly implies that he may raise the cost of tuition fees, even to cover the full cost of tuition, about £4,000 a year.
Although the Conservatives say that students will only start repaying loans when they earn £20,000 a year rather than £10,000 under Labour, they want to sell off all student debt to banks and insurance companies and increase the interest students pay on their loans.
These policies could leave the poorest students with the biggest debts at the mercy of finance companies and bailiffs. Ending state funding for universities would be a huge step towards privatisation of universities, and inevitably higher fees.
The Liberal Democrats say they favour the abolition of fees and support a funding system like that introduced in Scotland.
The abolition of up-front fees in Scotland proves that the government can be forced to abolish fees. It has also meant a sharp rise in Scottish applications in contrast to the rest of Britain.
However, the Scottish concessions are far from free education. Instead of paying upfront fees students pay their fees after they graduate. Scottish students still have thousands of pounds of debt on leaving university. This will deter the poorest students, particularly as a recession develops.
All the main parties' policies are determined by their support for big business. If elected they will try and go further in their attacks on students and education.
However, socialists are standing in the general election to provide an alternative to Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat policies. Socialist Party candidates fight for free education, the only guarantee that everyone has an equal chance of going to college and university regardless of background. We will do this if elected or not.
We're currently building a mass campaign of non-payment of fees in order to make them unworkable. A mass movement built around this strategy is the best way to defeat tuition fees and win back the grant.
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Nellist launches Socialist Alliance manifesto
DAVE NELLIST, Socialist Party councillor and national chair of the Socialist Alliance, along with other Socialist Alliance prospective parliamentary candidates, presented the Alliance's manifesto outside Millbank Tower - the HQ of New Labour - on Wednesday 16 May.
A truck with a poster saying "people not profit" appeared at the manifesto launch.
A brief interview with Dave on the Alliance's electoral prospects went out on Radio 4's Westminster Hour last Sunday.
The Socialist Alliance is fielding around 90 candidates in England. And combined with the Welsh Socialist Alliance and the Scottish Socialist Party is standing in about 170 constituencies. The Socialist Alliance election broadcast goes out on 22 May.
Brian Kelly's campaign in Dulwich, south London received a boost when ex-Monty Python star Terry Jones donated £600 to the Socialist Alliance - as opposed to the popular front for the Socialist Alliance!
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Women fed up of 'hard' Labour
A YOUNG Women's Christian Association (YWCA) survey says that one-third of women aged 18-30 probably won't vote in the general election. 41% of the women questioned said they "believe that they (politicians) do not listen to their views."
Clare James
As the YWCA's director pointed out: "Young women want the issues that matter to them addressed. They are keen to see real improvements in their quality of life."
This survey's results are no surprise considering what young women suffer. The New Labour government's attacks on working-class people have hit hard at women.
Benefits for single parents (still predominantly women) have been cut, so childcare is even more out of reach for working-class women with children.
On average women are paid 20% less than men, are concentrated in low-paid service sector jobs and are under-represented at higher levels of the workplace.
Young working-class women still suffer because of views, put forward by the media and capitalism, about women's position in society, and how women 'should' look.
Women bear the brunt of child care and domestic work. This unpaid labour creates huge wealth for capitalism by under-paying and over-working women in the workplace and at home.
Many women rightly see no solution in mainstream political parties who support the exploitation and support women and men being divided.
But where you can vote for a socialist alternative, do so and get active with the Socialist Party.
We fight for an end to this system that exploits women and divides people down the lines of sex, race, religion, nationality etc for greed and profit.
And after the election we'll keep on fighting for socialism and for real equality for women.
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Italian general election
Mr Big buys his way to power
RIGHT-WING BILLIONAIRE Silvio Berlusconi, has won the Italian general election.
Berlusconi's coalition secured an absolute majority over Francesco Rutelli's "olive tree" coalition in both the Senate and the lower house Chamber of Deputies.
Inital results suggest the Left-reformist Communist Refoundation achieved around 6% - similar to its 1994 result.
One of Berlusconi's coalition partners - the racist Northern League - saw its vote bomb to 4.3% from its previous 10.1%. However, the far right National Alliance gained 14%.
Trade union leader Claudio Sabattini of the country's largest union, CGIL, has predicted a "hot summer" of strikes over wages and job security if Berlusconi is elected. Unrest over these issues and attacks on pensions "could easily develop into a general strike", said Sabattini.
There are, however, only slight policy differences between the right-wing "House of Freedoms" (coalition of Berlusconi's Forza Italia, Umberto Bossi's separatist Northern League and the National Alliance - ex-Mussolini fascists - led by Gianfranco Fini) and the 'centre Left' "Olive Tree" coalition of ex-communist Left Democrats, and former Socialists and Christian Democrats. (The Communist Refoundation withdrew in 1998).
Berlusconi wants to slash taxes especially for the rich by abolishing gift and inheritance taxes and exempting reinvested profits.
Rutelli too promises lower taxes for businesses. Like the Right, Rutelli also wants to speed up the introduction of neo-liberal capitalist policies such as labour deregulation and more privatisation.
But neither leader wants to tackle the funding of pensions which account for 30% of state spending and which the bosses are demanding is cut. To do so would risk bringing hundreds of thousands of trade unionists back onto the streets.
Immigrant workers are being scapegoated, especially by the Northern League, for crime. Significantly, the vote for the League crashed compared with its 1994 result.
Both coalitions said they would tighten restrictions on immigrant workers. Yet, the bosses, especially in northern Italy, depend on these people to provide cheap, casual labour. Zanussi has specifically targeted such workers, setting up factories that employ these migrants.
Berlusconi - Unfit to govern
ACCORDING TO Forbes magazine Silvio Berlusconi is the world's 14th richest person. His wealth is estimated to be $12.8 billion.
Through his Finivest holding company, he controls three TV networks, Italy's biggest publishing house (Mondadori), a major newspaper (Il Giornale) and football team AC Milan. Berlusconi sees no conflict of interests between his financial empire and as a politician acting 'in the public interest'.
Berlusconi was prime minister of a short-lived, right-wing governing coalition in 1994. But corruption scandals, splits with the Northern League and mass pressure from the organised working class brought his seven-month old government crashing down.
On 14 October 1994, a massive movement of three million workers took to the streets against Berlusconi's proposed budget.
Berlusconi portrays himself as a self-made businessman set apart from the political establishment. To perpetuate this myth he circulated to households millions of a 128-page glossy 'history' album entitled: An Italian Story. (Thoughtfully, the Greens provided paper-recycling bins!)
In fact, Berlusconi has been found guilty of illegally financing his Forza Italia party, four counts of corruption including bribing the financial police, false accounting and tax fraud.
He escaped jail only on legal technicalities but more investigative cases of bribery and corruption involving his multibillion dollar media, property and financial empire are continuing.
The Economist has declared him 'unfit to govern'. Not that political corruption is of any great surprise to Italians - a country where 20% of businesses are part of the Mafia empire with an annual turnover of about $133 billion, the equivalent of 15% of GNP!
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Council workers back anti-cuts candidate
A MASS meeting of 400 council workers in Hackney has agreed to continue their campaign against attacks on their pay and conditions. Workers are determined that they should not have to pay for Hackney's financial crisis, caused by government cuts in grants and incompetence and mismanagement by councillors and senior managers.
Jim Horton
New contracts have been issued removing entitlement to contractual redundancy pay and bonus payments. Low-paid workers, facing pay cuts of £1,500 this year, have been threatened with the sack if they do not sign. To resounding cheers and applause at the mass meeting, one council worker ripped up his new contract.
UNISON is advising members not to sign the contracts and will take cases to tribunal for unfair dismissal if the council go ahead with issuing 90-day notices to the workforce. The key to winning this dispute is further industrial action.
A stewards' conference on 10 May backed selective action but the unions will need to respond with all-out action if management go ahead with mass sackings.
During the seven month-old dispute council workers have received huge support from Hackney residents who recognise that they are also fighting to defend everyone's services.
In order to build on this community support, council stewards have agreed to support Glenn Kelly as an anti-cuts, anti-corruption candidate for the Northwold by-election on 7 June. Socialist Party member Glenn Kelly is a local government worker, resident in Hackney and a member of the London executive of UNISON.
Initially UNISON branch chair, Brian Debus, was the agreed candidate but the law prevents council workers standing in their own borough. Stewards therefore switched their support to Glenn.
Glenn's standing allows council workers and all those opposed to the cuts to fight a united campaign for fully funded, high-quality services for Hackney.
The previous Liberal Democrat councillor for Northwold was jailed, along with another Tory councillor, for vote-rigging. While in office these councillors voted for the cuts package. Canvassing the ward has revealed huge enthusiasm for the idea of an independent workers' candidate fighting cuts and corruption.
Alliance opposition
UNFORTUNATELY THE Socialist Alliance in Hackney, dominated by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), has decided to stand a candidate against the council workers in the Northwold ward.
This mistake has been compounded by the decision of the Socialist Alliance executive on 12 May, which voted against a resolution supported by national chair Dave Nellist, calling for the alliance candidate to withdraw and the council workers' candidate to be given a free run. This is a bad decision when council workers are at a critical stage of their industrial dispute.
Council workers should be given full backing for making a political stand against the hated Labour/Tory coalition running Hackney council. The election of an anti-cuts candidate backed by the stewards would give enormous encouragement to the workforce. Combined with further industrial action, management can be forced to back down.
Hackney Socialist Alliance (HSA) is already standing in the parliamentary seat of Hackney South, and in the Queensbridge and Springfield wards. Council workers want to stand in just one ward, Northwold.
HSA says that their candidate will fight on an anti-cuts platform but will also raise socialist policies. Council workers expect nothing less. But HSA will not focus on the cuts or the fight of council workers.
Free run for New Labour
In the run-up to the strike on 1 May, while HSA had many posters up around Hackney on a variety of issues, there were no posters supporting or even publicising the strike. Meanwhile HSA is prepared to give Diane Abbott, the New Labour candidate a free run in the parliamentary seat covering Northwold. But they're not prepared to do the same for a working-class anti-cuts candidate.
Although the council workers are not putting forward a full socialist programme they are raising demands that challenge Blair's capitalist policies, such as an end to privatisation, the return of £50 million worth of grants stolen by the government since 1997 and cancellation of the debts which currently cost every Hackney resident over £400 a year.
But the main issue is that workers in struggle are breaking from New Labour and should be supported by all those seeking to build a united Left alternative.
HSA claims that Glenn does not have the real backing of the council workforce. But UNISON is prevented by its own rules from officially supporting Glenn, however, leading stewards and branch officers have backed him.
The idea of standing an anti-cuts candidate was first raised at the beginning of the dispute in November and was discussed at an anti-cuts conference organised by UNISON on 3 December. (See column, right for a chronology of events.)
Unfortunately, attempts to reach a compromise with HSA have failed. Stewards offered them first choice of seat. Originally HSA insisted they wanted to stand Mitch Dublin in Northwold ward. Mitch is an SWP member and ex-council worker, now working for the private waste management company with the council contract.
The stewards then offered to stand in Queensbridge. When HSA changed its mind and argued for Mitch to be the candidate in Queensbridge, the stewards conceded and agreed to stand in Northwold.
The stewards also offered to put a statement of support for alliance candidates in other wards on their leaflets, provided this was approved by the stewards' conference. But HSA would not make any concessions.
The stewards were told that if a council worker wanted to stand as a candidate, this had to be under the banner of HSA.
The stewards decided to go ahead with standing an anti-cuts candidate and attended the HSA selection meeting on 9 May. But their arguments were ignored.
John Page, UNISON branch secretary, was prevented from finishing his speech. Shamefully the alliance meeting, overwhelmingly composed of SWP members, voted to stand against the stewards-backed candidate.
But 27 convenors, stewards and branch officers, including John Page and Brian Debus, UNISON branch secretary and chair support Glenn. (see box below).
A further 96 council workers signed a petition in support of Glenn at the mass meeting on 14 May.
What happened when
1 February
UNISON branch AGM passes motion calling on members not to pay into the union political fund.
19 April
Stewards conference agree to stand an anti-cuts candidate on 7 June, in one of the three council by-elections.
1 May
One-day strike of council workers. Anti-cuts candidate endorsed at mass meeting.
9 May
Hackney Socialist Alliance selection meeting decides to stand in all three ward by-elections. This means standing against the anti-cuts candidate, Glenn Kelly, in Northwold ward.
10 May
Stewards' conference back selective action against new contracts. 16 stewards and convenors, a majority of the meeting, endorse Glenn Kelly as candidate, making 27 in total.
12 May
Socialist Alliance national executive backs Hackney SA's decision to stand against Glenn Kelly, the anti-cuts candidate.
14 May
400 at UNISON mass meeting, which agrees to continue the fight against attacks on pay and conditions. 96 more council workers sign the petition in Glenn's support.
The stewards and convenors supporting Glenn Kelly's candidature Brian Debus, UNISON chair, John Page, UNISON branch secretary, Jude Ritchie, education convenor, Steve Edwards, TGWU convenor, Louise Jackson, Social Services convenor. Khadija Wurie, convenor, Dalston Neighbourhood Office.
Stewards: Ricky Jones, education; Carlene Edwards, libraries; Chris Stone, Len Stephenson and Linda Challenger social services; Tony Hunt, Corporate Health and Safety; Kudu Omogbai, Dalston Housing Office; Daphne Ramsey, Policy/regeneration/communications.
Maya Vinobhai, Lindon House Nursery; Shirley Connors, Facilities, Management Services; Derek Fergus, Licensing; Sam Jess, CSSU; Clive Rattray, Trowbridge Day Centre; Sue O'Connor, Central Dept Estate Cleaner; Dorothy Plashett and Gary Chaplin Libraries; Nkrumah Maison, Housing; Joe Kirlew, Keltan House; Will Leng, Kay Adams and Jean Webster.
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Election 2001
WE CARRY on our series on what the main political parties are offering with an analysis of New Labour's programme. JANE JAMES takes a look at Blair's hollow ideas.
New Labour's 'ten year' plans
NEW LABOUR announced many of their policies for their next term in office well before the election. Confident of serving another two terms, they call their policies on education, crime and transport "ten-year plans."
Chancellor Gordon Brown told Labour's spring conference that Labour's "manifesto for the coming decade" had the goals of "full employment, prosperity for all, the majority of the young attending further or higher education, halving child poverty and delivering the best public services."
The speech was designed to enthuse Labour's troops so these 'aims' bore little resemblance to the party's real policy intentions. To find those out, look at what they say behind the scenes and the effect of their policies enacted in the last four years.
Tony Blair recently reaffirmed his commitment to big business, telling Forbes magazine he wants to make Britain "the No. 1 place to do business in the world." He boasts of Britain's "flexible labour market," and says: "I want to see far more emphasis on entrepreneurship in schools, far closer links between universities and business."
Some people argue that Labour is now changing direction. With Mandelson gone, they say, Brown can now spend money on public services, more like previous "old" Labour governments.
They reason that Brown couldn't spend too much on the working class in the first term because he was squeezing spending to show big business that they could trust this 'prudent' government.
Now he's proved his thriftiness, the argument goes, he can release money for public services. The Sun even calls Brown "a socialist chancellor!" Nothing could be further from the truth.
Brown spent less in his first two years than the Tories would have spent had they remained in office after 1997. This severely damaged services. Public spending was cut by 0.6% in Labour's first two years - the Tories spent more on the NHS.
New Labour haven't 'changed direction'. They're committed to continuing policies that favour capitalism. These spending plans are linked in with further privatisation, ensuring rich pickings for big business and worse services for us.
Policies which would signal a left turn, such as renationalisation of the railways and abolition of tuition fees, are not on the agenda.
Labour had a budget surplus of £18 billion plus £22.5 billion from the auction of mobile phone licences. Very little of this is to be spent on public services, but £34 billion will be handed to the banks and moneylenders to pay off the national debt.
Fat profits
YOU CAN tell as much about Labour's plans from what they don't say as from their policy announcements. Imagine if Labour truthfully described their ambition to tie in public spending with more privatisation: "Labour will privatise your services which will result in deteriorating services and worse conditions for workers delivering them.
"This measure is to ensure that big business has the opportunity it always wanted to make fat profits out of the public sector at the expense of workers and users."
New Labour also won't tell you that they'll carry on withholding money from local councils so forcing them to make cuts.
Labour make no commitment to returning the millions of pounds taken from local authorities such as the £14 million clawed back from Southampton council and the £50 million owed to Hackney, which resulted in savage cuts.
Privatisation of council services will continue, and so will Single Status and Best Value agreements which worsen workers' pay and conditions. More councils will be run by cabinets, eroding local democracy.
Labour boast of unemployment dipping below one million - they aim for full employment. This takes no account of what's left out of these figures. Many people have already been forced into low-paid temporary jobs owing to tighter rules for claiming unemployment benefit.
Labour plans to force the unemployed onto literacy and numeracy courses and to force single mothers of under-fives to attend training courses.
There's high unemployment in certain areas. 100,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost over the past 12 months and the TUC believes that as many again will go in the next year. Over 70% of the manufacturing workforce is employed in industries where output was stagnant or falling by last September.
Even a Commons Select Committee criticised Labour's harsh treatment of those who don't comply with New Deal rules. They complain that cutting housing benefit, so making claimants homeless, is a penalty too far.
Labour will increase the minimum wage to £4.20 an hour but that's still too low. They still give no minimum wage to under-18s and no increase for 18-21 year-olds. Of course millions will still earn below the minimum wage if there aren't enough inspectors to enforce it.
Schools crisis
LABOUR ALLOCATED £1 billion extra for education and health. This won't solve the fundamental problems facing these services. Labour's measures have contributed to the growing exodus of teachers from schools.
Performance-related pay, increased stress and no decent pay rise add to disillusionment and discourage students taking up teaching. Pupil-teacher ratios in secondary school are the worst for 25 years. Labour pledge to reduce secondary class sizes at a time when there are already huge teacher shortages.
Much of the money earmarked for education will go straight into the pockets of big business. Nord Anglia (a company already running some education services) say that "200 state schools will be wholly managed by private companies in five years."
Labour have already announced that there will be more selective and religious schools. For them, comprehensive education is on its way out.
By 2010, Labour aims for half of all 30-year-olds to have been to university but exactly the opposite is happening. One in six students drop out of university - 36% in more working class universities!
More and more, higher education is becoming a privilege of the rich. Despite many poorer students not having to pay tuition fees, it is a real struggle having no grant. The only option is working long hours and getting into debt. Student debt has tripled.
Labour's measures to boost the income of parents appear to be on the right track. Maternity pay is to increase; paid paternity leave is coming in; child tax credits take effect from April and Working Family Tax Credit (WFTC) is rising.
All these measures are aimed at working parents with minimal increases for those on benefits. Yet employers already complain that they cannot afford workers taking paternity leave while some employers are reportedly now sacking workers on WFTC as it's time-consuming to administer.
Private bonanza
PUBLIC SPENDING is supposedly to increase by 3.7% a year over the next three years, a total of £1.8 billion. However this starts from a very low level - the government itself reveals that last year money spent on capital projects had fallen by 32% on the previous year. Spending on Britain's infrastructure had fallen to half the level of the last Tory government.
Larry Elliot in the Guardian talks of "a very real risk that the public sector is so enfeebled that the surge in spending now is simply too little too late, and that Britain is now so far adrift of standards of provision elsewhere in the developed world that it will never be able to catch up."
Much of this public money will go directly to private companies. Most of the 29 new building projects for the NHS are privately financed. NHS use of private beds has trebled since last October.
Brown has enough money to build new hospitals and improve existing ones outright, but he'll let private companies do the work, then lease them back for the next 30 years.
That's far more expensive but it guarantees taxpayers' money going to big business - a prime aim for New Labour.
Extra money may be spent over the next decade on railways and buses to encourage a 50% increase in those using public transport. They're spending taxpayers' money but the government will still have no control over the railways. There will still be privatisation, with safety a low priority and services worsening.
The best, most popular measure would be to re-nationalise the railways which the government won't do as it's unpopular with big business.
Recession threat
LABOUR DRESS up their promises in meaningless phrases. They promise "the best public services" but cannot realise this as long as services are privatised, workers' pay and conditions are deteriorating and councils are starved of money.
And it will get worse. Unemployment, inflation and interest rates have all been low up to now, mainly due to the upwards cycle in the world economy not, as Labour claims, due to their 'expertise'.
With the US economy now in trouble and threatening the British economy, many of Labour's limited spending plans will be scuppered as rising unemployment forces tax receipts downwards and benefit payments up. We may then see more clearly the "£10 billion black hole" in Labour's spending plans which the Tories are making a focus of their hopeless election campaign.
Meanwhile as many workers lose their jobs, they will find out that Labour's benefit rules are extremely restrictive and more benefits than ever are now means-tested.
New Labour's intentions, and its record over the last four years, clearly show that this party represents big business. Rather than listen to the views of millions who oppose privatisation, tuition fees and reduced disability benefits, they prefer to do the bidding of a few fat cat directors.
The Socialist Party supports the building of a new mass workers' party. By standing candidates in this election, we'll give a voice to many who are looking for a socialist alternative to Labour's meaningless 'grand' plans.
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