(Click to enlarge: opens in new window)
Hospital closures… horsemeat scandal… housing benefit cuts… hypocritical MPs…
Toxic Tories – Time to fight their cuts and lies
Dave Griffiths, West Midlands Socialist Party secretary
They say we are what we eat. If so, HELP! Given what’s been revealed about our ‘food’ no wonder many think Britain’s ‘gone to the dogs’… or whatever animal it is.
The truth is few will be shocked that dodgy food comes from the pursuit of profit. The logic of supermarkets, councils, hospitals, etc, putting price before everything else has been revealed. As one supermarket boss – whose burgers weren’t beef – said: ‘we have to produce food for poor people.’ At least he’s right that poverty is part of the problem.
Saving money was the excuse for what happened at Stafford hospital. It’s the excuse for the bedroom tax that promises mass misery. And it’s the excuse for all the cuts and privatisation – slashing services and making a mint for the millionaires. Only the maddest Tory thinks that all the cuts won’t lead to grief.
Help change a rotten system
Scandal after scandal shows our lives are not safe in their hands. You’re probably not shocked that MPs still have their noses in the expenses trough, that they ‘fiddled’ at a rate 20 times more than benefit fraud.
Yet these hypocrites decide laws based on their lousy morals. Then the fuss dies away. Little changes. No wonder people are cynical. While few of us are surprised; the question is what are we going to do about it all?
We need a voice – none of the main parties can be relied on to stand up for us in any way – that’s clear. That’s one of the reasons the Socialist Party, with working class fighters in the RMT transport union and others, is trying to build a mass party that gives ordinary people a voice through the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.
Of course we don’t want horsemeat masquerading as beef; we don’t want poison in our food. Testing will tell us what’s in it – and should be done – but we can’t ensure what we get is either as labelled or nutritious while food is produced by multinationals for profit.
Like most free market-worshipping newspapers the Independent suggests the solution lies merely in inspection, ie we pay more to protect ourselves from them and leave the profits of super-rich private firms untouched! At the same time they all support cuts.
The common feature to these scandals is capitalism, a system based around production for profit and exploitation of the billions – us. Until we own and control our food production and services our safety won’t be guaranteed. Until the greed and inequality that drive this system are ended, and MPs are paid one worker’s wage – not three – then it will go on.
Only we can change it, and only if we organise. Some of us are already organised in the Socialist Party – why don’t you join with us?
