GORDON Brown was putting on a show of humbleness last night when he admitted on TV that he was not perfect but had made errors.
His principal admission was that he became the minister for the bankers when he insisted, from 1997 to 2008, that the bankers were right when they stated that the industry was over-regulated, and that less regulation was needed, not more, so that they could step up their speculations.
Brown, who boasted that he had resolved the crisis of capitalism and that there would never be another crisis, was 100 per cent sure that the bankers could not be mistaken.
He, therefore, did nothing to curb the arbitrary power of the banks. He basked in the glory of being their man, all the time that they were building up the colossal debt mountain, which has been exploding all over the world every day since the crash of the US housing market and Lehman Brothers.
Last night he said that he should have put the ‘whole public interest’ before the banks – but he didn’t.
He believed that the inflationary boom was never going to be brought down to earth with a crash.
Another mistake that he admitted was abolishing the 10p lowest band of taxation for the poor.
The reaction to this cowardly attack on the poorest people, the other side of his indulgence of the bankers, nearly cost him his premiership since it revealed that while he set no limits to the rich speculators, he was prepared to savage the poorest workers.
Brown was, and remains besotted with capitalism.
This was proven when, believing that gold was just a symbol for value and had no intrinsic value, and that it was replaceable by printed notes, that is promises to pay, he sold off 395 tons of the 750 tons of UK’s gold reserves, when paper money was riding high and gold was at a 20-year low.
He sold off the gold for around $270 an oz, when today’s selling price is up to $1150 an oz! This makes for a loss of some $7bn. Nevertheless, our hero still says that he would do the same again.
He is the reincarnation of Voltaire’s Candide. He went from disaster to disaster but persisted in his belief that this is the best of all possible worlds, and that everything is for the best.
Brown’s pledge that he should have put the ‘whole public interest’ before the banks is just an attempt at deceiving the working class.
After all, it was tested out when the banks crashed. If he was putting the whole public interest first he would have nationalised the banks under workers control and put an end to the speculators and get- rich-quick men for ever.
He didn’t. Instead he handed over to them £1.2 trillion in gifts, loans and guarantees, doubled the national debt and drove the budget deficit up to £170bn.
He is now telling the working class and the middle class that they must sacrifice their jobs, wages, homes, the NHS, the Welfare State, and the future of their children to repay the bankers’ debts for them. He is betraying the working class.
Meanwhile, the bankers are back to their million pound bonuses.
It is no accident that the ‘analysts’ of Credit Suisse declared yesterday that they were for a Brown government since their belief was that he would be a better servant of the banks than Cameron.
Brown is receiving the support that he has earned from his patrons the bankers.
This is why the WRP is standing seven parliamentary candidates.
Our message is keep the Tories out, but prepare for an all-out conflict with whichever government emerges from the election, whether it is Labour, Tory or a national government.
The next government is going to seek to impose the entire burden of the crisis onto the backs of the workers, on behalf of the bankers and bosses.
The working class will resist with a general strike.
This will pose the working class with taking power through a socialist revolution and putting an end to capitalism.
We urge all workers and youth to vote WRP where we are standing, to vote Labour in the other constituencies, but to also join the WRP to organise the struggle for workers power which will explode after the election.
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