Dave Griffiths, West Midlands Socialist Party
Strikers marching through London on 30 November 2011, photo Senan

Strikers marching through London on 30 November 2011, photo Senan   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

There’s a whiff in the Birmingham air. The Tories met here in a state of panic. It’s all going wrong!

The Con-Dem government faces humiliating failure. As if normal people needed telling, the economy is not even standing still but shrinking. Why? Because they’re strangling the economy as they hammer our living standards.

The Tories did try to detoxify their ‘nasty party’ image. But, when in crisis, the nasty party releases its hounds! They want to intensify the attacks on the poor and vulnerable, with another £10 billion of benefit cuts.

So ‘we’re all in it together’, unless you’re a worker, unemployed, a woman, a pensioner, young, need a home, or want a same sex marriage.

Having no answer to their crisis they want to get ordinary people – desperately trying to survive – to start blaming and fighting each other.

Disgracefully, Chancellor George Osborne said: “How can we justify someone young on benefits having a flat when someone twice their age in work is still at their parents unable to afford a home?”

The real question is how can he justify the failure of the free market to ‘supply’ affordable homes for all?

They want to deny younger people a home. They want to cut benefits to families. Having cheated and bullied the disabled and sick, now they want to tell children ‘you shouldn’t have been born’ by limiting child benefit. Rights at work are to be undermined on the orders of big Tory donors, especially venture (code for ‘does little useful’) capitalist Adrian Beecroft who wants bosses to be free to fire at will.

The Tories are beleaguered by hostility from working people. But now even their friends are deserting them. Support among big business bosses has dropped from 77% to 55%. 65% of Tory voters oppose reduced tax rates for the wealthy.

Other ‘friends’ have their own plans. Desperate Lib Dems are trying to create distance to avoid electoral oblivion, and when London mayor Boris Johnson arrives… Well, when one toff has what another toff wants…

This is a weak government that we can kick out.So, on 20 October, we should flood the streets to show our opposition to Con-Dem austerity.The trade unions and TUC must step up the fightback to bring down this government.The call for a 24-hour general strike received huge support at the recent demonstration outside Tory conference.

The bosses’ free-market system made the crisis and they want us to pay. Labour leader Ed Miliband offering to be an alternative Tory party with ‘one nation’ Toryism is no answer. All three parties claim we’re one nation while they all divide it more – between them and their rich mates against the rest of us. If you want a real alternative, then join the socialists.

  • Join the TUC marches against austerity on 20 October – London, Glasgow and Belfast
  • For a 24-hour general strike to kick out the Con-Dems
  • Build a new mass workers’ party