Autumn statement: bonanza for the bosses, pain for the people

The cutter's axe, photo by Martin Cathrae (Creative Commons)

The cutter’s axe, photo by Martin Cathrae (Creative Commons)   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Paul Callanan

As we go to press, Tory Chancellor George Osbourne is due to deliver his autumn budget statement.

The Socialist expects the usual tax cuts and freebies bonanza for big business and the rich. But for working class people, it can only be more misery.

Local councils have already had 40% of their budgets slashed since 2010. Most are preparing for an extra 30% on top of that!

The Labour leader of south London’s Greenwich council, Denise Hyland, was recently confronted on the cuts. Danny Hoggan, branch secretary of general union Unite, said if more cuts go through then “in 2020 we won’t be talking about saving local services – but resurrecting them.”

Weaknesses

The Autumn Statement could lay bare some of the government’s weaknesses.

The Tory-controlled House of Lords has already embarrassed it over tax credits. There are suggestions that Osborne will fund a transitional plan by cutting housing benefit – hurting many of the same people.

And under pressure from a potential financial collapse in the NHS, he has had to increase finding by £3.8 billion. But this will mean deeper cuts in other areas.

More worryingly for a prime minister in waiting, the chancellor’s economic plans are not delivering his headline promises.

He claims to be creating a “low-tax, high-wage economy”. Yet only one in 40 jobs created since the economic crisis began is full-time employed.

Osborne says we need to ‘live within our means’. Yet this October was the highest for government borrowing in six years.

Public spending is actually increasing – but while services fall apart. The Treasury must borrow no more than £15 billion between now and April if it wants to meet Office for Budget Responsibility targets.

And the recovery rate is a namby-pamby 0.5% of GDP.

But austerity was never meant to fix things for us. Austerity is about cutting jobs and services so they can hand the dough back to bosses.

An organised mass movement – linking coordinated strikes with an anti-austerity political alternative – could consign the cutters to history.