TORY attempts to convince the working class, the middle class and the poor that the ‘recovery’ has begun and things are looking better, are having the opposite effect to that which the spin doctors and soothsayers who serve the Tory leadership intend.
In fact, the harsh truths of daily life, combined with the vicious and even sadistic changes to come, are driving millions into a fury.
There are already five million workers in the UK who are getting less than the ‘Living Wage’ of £8.30 an hour in London and £7.20 an hour in the rest of the UK.
‘Times are difficult for many people, but of course those on the lowest pay are suffering the most,’ admits Marianne Fallon, head of corporate affairs at KPMG.
90% of bar staff and 85% of waiters and waitresses, and 780,000 sales and retail assistants get under the Living Wage as do 20% of the total workforce, who live in poverty.
Far from seeing this state of affairs as an abomination the government is actively working to spread it far and wide, with their low-pay-local-pay offensive to smash up forever the national wage and conditions of service agreements negotiated by the trade unions, that have lifted millions out of poverty.
The government is now considering legislating to end national pay bargaining in the public sector and to introduce a system of regional or local pay rates that will completely undermine the power of national trade unions, and help drive millions downwards in a race to the bottom.
At the same time over one million households will receive letters from the UK tax authority this week telling them that they will be losing their child benefit.
Households where at least one person earns more than £50,000 will have their child benefit stopped, affecting up to 500,000 parents. Ministers say the changes, which take effect on 7th January, are needed so the better-off help deficit reduction, again by being forced downwards.
At the same time families who have spare rooms and are on housing benefit will have their benefit slashed, and could lose their homes if they cannot pay the difference to make up their full rent.
Following these draconian measures there is to be a two-tier Vehicle Excise Duty.
Motorway users are to be victimised and forced to pay a higher rate of duty than those who cannot afford to travel on the high speed and increasingly high cost motorways.
In March, David Cameron said that fresh ideas were needed to finance road improvements at a time of tight government finances, so the motorway user is to finance private companies, meaning that part of a driver’s Vehicle Excise Duty payments would go directly to private companies managing and investing in the road network.
Cameras using number plate recognition technology are to be used to catch dangerous motorway ‘criminals’ who have not paid the higher rate.
This is the brave new world of the Tory-led coalition, where the taxpayer props up the banks and bigbusiness, who cannot stand on their own two feet, and where the majority of the workers are transformed into working poor, penalised and taxed and fined by the state at every turn.
Alongside the working poor are the unemployed who are to be treated as criminals despite the fact that it is capitalism that has failed – not them. Officials are to have the power to stop their benefits and starve them if they are not deemed to be looking for non-existent work with the desired enthusiasm.
They will also face a threat to their child benefits. They will only be paid child benefit for two children. Any more childbirths will receive a state punishment. The next step, or the final solution, could be the sterilisation of unemployed women who have more than two children, or perhaps a third child could be aborted since the coalition cannot tolerate more mouths to feed.
This is the brave new world that the Tories are opening the doors to. No wonder they live in fear of revolution. No ruling class has deserved it more than they.
