ON Monday, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee issued a report blaming the Bank of England (BoE) for ‘errors’ that had failed to stop the inflationary spiral running out of control.
On the same day the Governor of the BoE, Andrew Bailey, hit back in a press interview saying that Britain’s growth outlook is ‘worst I’ve ever seen’.
Bailey poured cold water over the claims made by Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in his Autumn Budget last week that Britain had ‘turned the corner’, inflation was coming down, tax cuts to the rich would drive economic growth and interest rates would inevitably fall.
Bailey said: ‘If you look at what I call the potential growth rates of the economy, there’s no doubt it’s lower than it has been for much of my working life.’
As for interest rates, Bailey dismissed the claim that the recent fall in the official inflation rate meant that the BoE would be cutting interest rates in the ‘foreseeable future’ despite the pain he acknowledged it inflicts on the working class.
Predictably, Bailey’s stark assessment that British capitalism was a sinking ship was met with howls of anger from Tory MPs, who accused Bailey of ‘repeatedly talking the United Kingdom down’ while Rishi Sunak’s office still claimed, ‘We have turned the corner.’
Bailey came back fighting, insisting he is not an ‘ultra-pessimist’ insisting he was being a ‘realist’ about the crisis and that this realism means ‘us getting our sleeves rolled up and tackling the issues we face’.
Tackling the issues for Bailey means dealing with the working class.
Bailey has always maintained that workers’ wage increases have driven inflation up forcing the Bank to drive up the interest rates that have pauperised millions. Indeed one former BoE economist, Jack Meaning, even said that next year’s increase in the National Living Wage ‘could push that first rate back even further’.
Even a derisory increase of £1.20 an hour for the lowest paid worker is enough to derail the entire economic strategy of the BoE!
What the Bank of England demands is for the Tories to stop all the nonsense talk about recovery and get on with the real job of wage cutting and imposing mass unemployment on the working class.
This can only be achieved by smashing the trade union movement, and ensuring that it is the working class that goes down with the ship, while the top bosses and bankers scramble for any lifeboat they can find.
Behind all the nonsensical talk of economic recovery just around the corner, the Tories, in fact, have already rolled their sleeves up for a fight to the finish with the working class and its unions. The anti-strike laws are on the statute book and the Tories are preparing to put them into practice.
This week, Tory Education Secretary Gillian Keegan announced she would use the minimum service levels law to force teachers to cross picket lines during legally called strike action over pay.
The crucial issue of the Tory anti-strike laws is immediate and the TUC must not be allowed to carry on as if it can be wished away or subverted through the courts.
On Saturday December 9, the TUC has been forced to call an emergency Congress to discuss ‘the next step’ in fighting the anti-strike laws.
Workers and young people must force the TUC leaders to take up a real fight by calling a general strike to bring down this collapsing Tory government and bring in a workers government and a planned socialist economy.
The working class and masses throughout the world will be cheering when British capitalism is finally consigned to the history books.
Palestinians will be loudly cheering at the overthrow of the ruling class in Britain, the old imperialist country that ‘gave’ Palestine to the Zionists in the Balfour Declaration, and has been the staunchest supporter of the racist, apartheid Israeli regime ever since.
In fact, the TUC must invite the Palestinian leadership to address the Congress to further cement the unity between the working class in Britain and the Palestinians, in the fight for the independent state of Palestine and for a socialist UK.
With the world capitalist ship sinking there has never been a more necessary or opportune time to finally put capitalism out of its misery with the victory of the world socialist revolution.
