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'President' Blair Fails Again

Build a new workers' party

TONY BLAIR'S government is in trouble. His attempts to implement a hurried and botched 'constitutional reform' and hide it behind a government reshuffle without even consulting his own Cabinet have been widely criticised.

Even New Labour politicians fear that Blair's government is more 'presidential' than ever (possibly modelling himself on his hero Bush)! As with the controversy about the Prime Minister lying about weapons of mass destruction, Blair has trodden on the toes of the establishment as well as those of the working class.

He criticises the House of Lords, not for its domination by the rich and powerful but for "old-fashioned time-consuming practices". In other words they've read - and temporarily defeated - hundreds of pieces of New Labour legislation.

He's abolished the Lord Chancellor's role and announced sweeping changes to the judicial and legal systems and to the machinery of devolution.

Blair is trying to cover this fuss with a speech about 'reforming' public services. His 'reforms' such as Foundation hospitals, Private Finance Initiative (another £9 billion worth of PFI deals are due in health, education and housing alone by 2005) are all supposed to prove that the private sector can solve the problems of the public sector.

Blair could hardly have chosen a worse day to try to prove his crass viewpoint than just after the Strategic Rail Authority report on Britain's privatised rail system.

The rail services are getting worse. Nearly a quarter of rail companies are technically insolvent and most of them are getting huge subsidies. Even when privatised firms such as engineering contractor Jarvis (still under police investigation over last year's Potters Bar rail crash) make record profits, they still can't run a service.

One in five trains are late, so services will be reduced to "make them more reliable"! The government claim that to get higher investment, passengers will have to pay 4% higher fares. Where's the money gone from their subsidies and profits?

All this capitalist nonsense is causing people to move away from New Labour.

Opinion polls show a revival even amongst the desperate Tories. Blair says if people don't stop attacking Blairite politics, the Tories will come back. But what has New Labour brought us but Tory policies squared?

Don't just replace Blair with another capitalist liar. Join us in our fight for a new mass workers' party and in our battle for that party to put forward a socialist alternative.

In this issue

'President' Blair Fails Again

Wedgwood Potteries Closure

Wales further education colleges: Lecturers Fight For A Living Wage

Kick Poverty Pay Out Of The NHS

France: Workers Still Angry At Bosses' Plans

Sorting Out The Bosses

Tameside Day Centre Users Protest Against Cuts

Anti-discrimination regulations: Fight Concessions To The Religious Right

Iranian Student Protest

Israeli / Palestinian conflict Socialism - The Only Road To Peace

Firefighters dispute: It Didn't Have To Be Like This

What can we do about the 'fat cats?'

East Germany 1953: When the Workers rose Up Against Stalinism

Home   |   The Socialist 21 June 2003   |   Join the Socialist Party

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Related links:

Rail:

Transport union RMT tells members: refuse to work in unsafe conditions

The Red Line - Bulletin of Socialist Party members in the RMT

Nationalise the railways: For an integrated public transport system

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Government:

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Capitalist:

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Tony Blair:

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