THE Coalition regime is in big trouble after it faced defeat in the House of Commons last night over its measure to reorganise the House of Lords, along the lines favoured by its Liberal component.
The Coalition parties are at each other’s throats because of the crisis of British capitalism. This, as part of the world crisis of the capitalist system, is deepening despite all of the desperate measures taken to prop it up, from austerity measures to the transferring of billions from the working class to the bankers.
On Tuesday night, 100 or so Tory MPs were in the mood to give Cameron and Osborne a bloody nose after a series of crises and scandals, from the continually re-written budget to the Tory cabinet being in the hip-pocket of Rupert Murdoch and the bankers, had sickened the masses of the people.
The bankers are now seen as behaving exactly like the Bourbons, and to be actively demanding the same fate, while the Tory Party is seen as their champion, unwilling and organically incapable of separating itself from them.
However, the humiliation of the Tory leadership has only just begun.
At Monday’s House of Commons Treasury Select Committee, Bank of England deputy governor Tucker explained throughout the session of questioning that from 2008 onwards the BofE was obsessed that Barclays bank, which had refused state aid in favour of handouts from Arab feudalists, was about to collapse.
In fact, the position remains unchanged. As the euro crisis deepens the position of Barclays worsens since its massive euro debt amounts to 170% of its assets. A new collapse of the banks is at hand.
Tucker also categorically stated that no Labour minister, including the then City minister Balls, had demanded that he pressure Barclays to cut their Libor rate.
This has led to a Tory MP, Andrea Leadsom, demanding that Chancellor Osborne apologise to Balls and others for his statements that Labour ministers, including Balls, were involved in fixing the Libor rate.
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This demand by a Tory MP to her Chancellor, who is allegedly single-handedly standing between British capitalism and disaster, is the equivalent of the meanest Eton fag pushing the snout of the school’s most elevated headboy into a heap of crap. It is complete humiliation.
However, what this episode spells out is that with the present Coalition completely failing to do the job, the ruling class may well need the help of Balls and his ilk of Labour traitors to form the type of national government that will have at least part of one foot on the Labour movement, and thus a better chance of being able to push through hated austerity measures.
There is every sign that the Labour leaders, Balls and all – and the reformist trade union leaders, would be willing to swap a Tory-LibDem coalition for a Labour-Tory-LibDem national government, based on the 1931 National Government, as the crisis rapidly worsens.
The 1931 government came about after the defeat of the 1926 general strike, and even then it led to a split in the Labour Party.
In today’s conditions of the death agony of capitalism, and with massive hostility to capitalism and bankers gripping the masses, such a manoeuvre will be all the more difficult to organise. This does not mean that it will not be tried.
In fact, there is only one way forward. This is to organise a general strike to bring down the present Tory-led Coalition and replace it with a workers government that will carry out socialist policies and put an end to capitalism by expropriating the bosses and the bankers.