- Starmer keeps Tory two-child cap
- We need to organise a workers’ alternative
Things cost, on average, 11.3% more than they did this time last year, according to the government’s own RPI inflation rate. The cost of renting a room has gone up 17%, and if you have a mortgage coming to the end of its fixed term, annual payments are set to go up by thousands.
But not everyone is struggling to pay the bills in this rigged and rotten profit-driven system. Britain’s top companies are making bigger profits – 89% higher at the start of 2022 than three years earlier, according to Unite the Union.
By refusing to accept the Tories ruling out even talking about pay last autumn, workers in the trade unions have forced them back by striking, winning improved pay offers.
More still can be won. The junior doctors’ union the BMA has already rejected their pay offer, which is still below inflation and without extra funding. Teachers are voting too on whether to settle. It’s not over yet.
By refusing to fully fund the new pay offers, the Tories are promising more cuts to services, on top of 13 years of austerity. There’s nothing left to cut! Socialist Party members are fighting for fully funded, inflation-proof pay rises, and to kick the Tories out.
But, would a Labour government spend more on public services? That was the question BBC journalist Laura Kuenssberg repeatedly asked Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer – with no response.
Starmer is at pains to demonstrate his so-called “fiscal responsibility”, that is what is behind his long list of dropped pledges. The latest: Labour will no longer scrap the Tories’ two-child benefit cap which, as it stands, keeps 250,000 children in poverty.
We need a working-class, political alternative. One which is prepared to back workers’ strikes for pay rises, fully fund services, and fight for a socialist alternative to profit-driven capitalism. A step forward would be trade unions organising a workers’ list of candidates to contest the next general election. It could include Jeremy Corbyn and others barred from standing by Starmer, such as Jamie Driscoll in the north east.
