No end to austerity from ‘The Magnificent Seven’

Leaders’ debate

No end to austerity from ‘The Magnificent Seven’

Nancy Taaffe, TUSC parliamentary candidate, Walthamstow

They called the leaders’ debate last Thursday the meeting of “The Magnificent Seven”, but Disney’s ‘Seven Dwarfs’ could have done better – with Dopey surpassing Farage any day!

From the Tories/Liberals/Labour it was austerity as usual and that some cuts are necessary. Even though there were many references to ending austerity by the smaller parties, there was no mention of how this could be done. The debate reflected the seven degrees of cuts that the working class can expect from these ‘not-so magnificent’ seven.

Nick Clegg attempted to distance himself from David Cameron, but no matter how much he tried he sounded like a babbling man on his way to the political gallows.

Ed Miliband’s habit of staring lovingly into the camera at the end of every sentence, apart from making him look like Alan Partridge, oozed insincerity.

Cameron’s controlled silence did not shield him from exposure to his government’s failures.

To one extent or another, the old established parties looked tired, repetitive and unconvincing. For a change the debate framed Farage as he really is, a right wing establishment figure, devoid of any real policies.

Alternatives?

For many around the country, who have no experience of the smaller parties, the chance to see and hear the Greens, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party (SNP) was somewhat of a novelty. The fact that the leaders of these three parties are all women was seen by many as a welcome alternative to ‘the men in suits’.

But here too, you had to listen carefully to understand that a strategy to defeat austerity wasn’t being offered.

Nicola Sturgeon mentioned on more than two occasions that the government deficit would be brought down, “at a much slower pace” if people voted SNP. Leanne Wood in a reply to a question on tuition fees stated: “Plaid [Cymru] would love to cut tuition fees but we can’t because of austerity imposed on us by central government.”

Natalie Bennett of the Greens outlined some progressive policies but did not outline how austerity would be ended, just that it had to be.

All three leaders of the smaller parties failed to mention that where they are in power they too are implementing cuts!

The fact is that the SNP, Plaid and the Greens could all vote against cuts at regional and local levels where they have elected representatives, but they don’t. These small parties claim to be opposed to austerity and yet do not see their positions as platforms to build a movement amongst the working class to end it.

If the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) had one rep in the debate they would have clearly stated that they would vote against cuts and privatisations and combine with an anti-cuts movement to hasten austerity’s demise.

If TUSC had been there we would have outlined the record of socialists in Liverpool in the 1980s who built such a fightback. Then, we won extra money for the city and beat Thatcher when the Labour Party leaders couldn’t defeat her.

We would have given recent examples of socialist representatives like Paul Murphy in Ireland. Paul has been at the forefront of the battle to end the Labour/Fine Gael government’s hated water charges. He didn’t get elected and do what the Greens previously did in Ireland, ie vote through an austerity budget because ‘the International Monetary Fund said so’.

Or we would point to Seattle, USA, where Socialist Alternative councillor Kshama Sawant used her position to strengthen a movement to win a doubling of the federal minimum wage in that city.

The Leaders’ debate was a lot of words. Without a clear strategy of how austerity will be defeated, it became an endurance test no matter what the proclamations of the new kids on the block.