THE bourgeois media is currently working overtime publicising the ‘bad news’ about the British capitalist economy.
Everybody now knows that youth unemployment (the 16-24 age group) is expected to reach one million when the figures are published tomorrow.
It is now also common knowledge that the Bank of England will cut its forecast for UK economic growth down to one per cent for this year. This is down from its earlier figure, which was also a downward revision, of 1.5 per cent.
This means that the UK is on the brink of a huge growth of unemployment, to push it above the three million level.
The real news however, that is still being concealed, is that rapidly mounting unemployment, however desperately workers and youth are refused access to the JobSeekers Allowance, will see a huge rise in government spending.
This means that the coalition government’s savage cuts policy will not be savage enough to cut the colossal debts of UK capitalism.
The UK’s ‘Triple A’ status, that allows it to sell its debt currently at just above two per cent interest, as against seven per cent for Italy, will be under threat, and the coalition regime will have to embark on a round of big cuts in the meagre JobSeekers Allowance, and all other benefits, to try and prevent the UK bosses and bankers from being completely bankrupted.
The CBI was moaning yesterday that the bosses will no longer even take on temporary workers. It tried to blame the EU for this, saying that it was because of new EU laws that allegedly give temps ‘gold plated’ employment rights.
Britain’s position at the bottom of the capitalist pile is not the fault of the EU. It was Mrs Thatcher and then Blair and Brown who said that British banks were the foundation of the economy and that manufacturing was out of date, and that bosses were right to shift plants from the UK to cheaper labour areas.
Brown even boasted that he had overcome the tendency of capitalism to go from boom to bust, and sold off two thirds of the gold reserves for a pittance to try and prove that Marx was wrong, and that there was nothing wrong with a sustained dose of inflationary debt.
Now the whole edifice is collapsing like a pack of cards, with Italy having a stronger economy than the UK. The solution of the bosses for their crisis is to forcibly return the working class and the vast majority of society to the conditions of life of the 19th century.
The working class and the youth will never accept this, and the ruling class knows it.
The rapidly developing class confrontation is the source of last week’s warning to students that their demonstration could be met with a hail of plastic bullets.
It is also the source of ‘Star Chamber’ boss Maude’s warning that the trade unions must strike for no longer than 15 minutes on November 30 or else face new anti-union laws that will ban all strikes.
Maude exhibited not only real, vintage ruling class arrogance, but also a realisation that if British capitalism is to continue then the time has arrived for the drawing of the sword.
The working class and the youth are beginning to sense this as well.
This is why the action on the 30th must be the dress rehearsal for an indefinite general strike to bring down the coalition and bring in a workers government that will put an end to capitalism and organise a socialist planned economy based on satisfying the needs of the people.
To carry this out the working class needs a new and revolutionary leadership. This leadership is the WRP and the YS. We urge all workers and youth to join the WRP and to attend our News Line Anniversary rally on Sunday November 27th (see page one) where all the major issues will be addressed.
