Queen’s Speech attack on working class people

Stop Tory welfare butchery

Roger Shrives

The Queen’s Speech. A medieval pantomime of costumed caricatures like Black Rod, the royals and ‘Rouge Dragon Pursuivant’.

A fitting opening for the pantomime politics of the main parties. Fitting also for the medieval savagery they have in store for the working class.

This arrogant government of Old Etonians and millionaires dearly wants to turn back the clock. To take back what little earnings and hard-won rights we have.

The rich are getting ever richer. Cameron will not really tax them – instead ‘saving’ money by pulling crucial support from the working class and poor.

Some £12 billion will go from benefits for disabled people, the young and the poorest. Cameron and his super-rich backers will gain from tax breaks. Carers – who give 24-hour support to people with disabilities, for very low wages – will pay for it.

The number of children living in poverty will rocket – from the already horrifying figure of 3.5 million.

Meanwhile, Cameron hollowly denounces a £7,000 salary boost for MPs. But his gravy-train government will do nothing to waylay it. This at a time when millions of workers have suffered years of zero pay rises.

Iain Duncan Smith, the reactionary brute of a work and pensions secretary, is back to carry out so-called ‘welfare reform’. But even he is “squeamish” about the barbaric blood-letting to come. He knows these cuts will provoke a fighting response.

The Tories want a return to the dark ages – the pre-war days before the welfare state. Crisis-wracked capitalism is promising us nothing but attacks on jobs, pay, services, homes and rights. Working class people are already responding through struggle – including strike action and community campaigns – to stop these medieval plans.

The Socialist Party fights to build a socialist alternative to the recurring nightmare of capitalism. Join us to fight for a future for all – not a return to horrors of history.