The government is trying to cow the working class by the sheer scale of the cuts. Two thirds of public-sector bodies are reported to be making job cuts.
Every week a new slaughter of public services is announced.
Yet, like the Wizard of Oz, behind the shock and awe, a very weak coalition government trailing in the polls, is pulling the strings. Chancellor George Osborne’s declaration that the government has no plan B, has never been more than propaganda.
Behind the scenes, the strategists of capitalism are clear that the government has no choice but to have a plan B in reserve. As the Financial Times editorial put it on 3 February:
“Given the uncertainties, the government may have to adjust its plans in the light of events. To refuse to do so would be irrational”.
Mass outrage
In the face of mass outrage, the government has already shown that it is capable of retreat. In one week in February it delayed the plans to privatise Britain’s forests, continued threatened funding of debt counsellors for a year, and demagogically warned universities against charging the £9,000 a year fees that the government introduced just two months ago.
These are not major retreats, but they give a glimpse of how scared the government is of potential opposition. David Cameron has had to admit openly that:
“It is not possible to make those cuts without cutting some things that are important. It will not make us popular. It will make us unpopular. It will make me unpopular”.
It already has! Some opinion polls now show Cameron as being as hated as Maggie Thatcher, the Iron Lady, was at her most unpopular.
The Con-Dems are far weaker than the governments of Maggie Thatcher. Yet the Iron Lady was reduced to iron filings by a mass movement of 18 million people refusing to pay the flat rate tax (poll tax) that her government had introduced.
That movement ended the tax and brought down Thatcher. It was led by the Socialist Party (then called Militant).
Such was the burning anger at the tax that, even if we had not existed, a mighty movement would have taken place against it. Our role was to play a critical part in organising and giving direction to the movement – which resulted in it being victorious.
Today again, with the right strategy, the movement can be successful. This pamphlet outlines how we can stop the cuts.
