Richard Gingell, Black Country Socialist Party
The Tory budget won’t solve the cost-of-living crisis facing the majority of us, but it does look after the bosses. It ignores the hardship of the working class while moving more money to the wealthy elite and continuing to shred our services.
Included in the budget is: abolishing the £1 million tax-free limit to pension contributions, which no working-class person reasonably expects to reach; cuts in fuel duty to disproportionally benefit those with large, gas-guzzling cars or fleets of business vehicles; and raising taxes on alcohol, tobacco and plastic packaging, which will disproportionately tax poorer workers higher.
It is clear who this budget is for – the rich, big-business backers of the Tory party.
The extension of the energy price cap, costing the government £29.4 billion in total, has been a bailout for the energy bosses to enable them to continue making huge profits, and we still can’t afford our bills. Instead, we need to nationalise the energy companies, with compensation only paid on the basis of proven need, not to the rich.
The Tories have included an increase in the eligibility for 30 hours free childcare. See here for the reaction from parents – if your family needs help immediately, you won’t get it from the Tories.
Buried in the budget document there is a pitiful increase in funding for the NHS specifically to “tackle waiting lists”. There is no mention of the ongoing systemic problems of NHS privatisation and funding. Absent is any increase in funding to improve the pay and conditions of health staff or indeed any public-sector worker.
The government is not increasing public spending beyond the 1%-a-year agreed previously. Inadequate when our hospitals, are crumbling, education funding is in crisis and all the services we need are under attack.
It will do nothing to address the cost-of-living crisis and is a continuation of the last 13 years of Tory austerity that got us in this dire situation in the first place. Keir Starmer’s Labour take their cues from the same big-business backers: “I know we’re going to have to be fiscally disciplined” translates to austerity under Labour too.
What we need is a socialist alternative – to nationalise the banks and big business and put that wealth to use. To democratically discuss and plan what we actually need in society, not what makes a profit for those at the top. And we need a mass workers’ party that will fight for this.
