WHEN the most right-wing Tory supporting newspaper in the country turns on the Tory government, accusing it of gross incompetence and heading for disaster, it is a sure sign the Tories are at the point of destruction.
Yesterday, an article in the Daily Telegraph by commentator Jeremy Warner tore into the government describing it as a ‘Ship of Fools’ that ‘does not even seem to know it’.
Another columnist in the Telegraph joined in with an attack on Tory education secretary Gavin Williamson over his role in the A-Level exams debacle, writing that ‘the A-level fiasco could be the turning point that destroys the Tories’ political fortunes.’
The crisis over A-levels is just the latest in a long line of Tory disasters. They presided over a complete lack of preparation for the coronavirus pandemic, despite the warnings they were given back in 2016, when a report was published on the findings of Exercise Cygnus.
The Tories ignored this report, made no preparations to meet the pandemic and instead carried on with their cuts to the NHS. When the pandemic started to rage the Tories opted for the policy of ‘herd immunity’, letting Covid-19 tear through the population unchecked in the hope of obtaining immunity.
With the NHS on the point of collapse and unable to cope, the Tories forced the elderly out of hospitals without any testing for the virus, back to care homes where thousands died.
When the outcry from the public could no longer be ignored, Johnson handed out multi-million contracts to private companies to operate a track and trace system that proved to be an absolute disaster.
With the entire Tory government in meltdown, and even the Tory press clamouring for useless ministers to be sacked, the question is what is keeping this ship of fools afloat?
The answer to this is the complete absence of any opposition from the Labour Party and trade union leadership. Labour leader Kier Starmer has kept an absolute silence over even sacking the useless Williamson.
Where was Starmer when thousands of youth erupted on the streets against an exam system designed to push working class students down in favour of the offspring of the wealthy and entitled ruling class?
Throughout this entire period of a Tory government driven to political destruction, the Labour Party has continually propped it up by offering no opposition, instead merely calling for the Tories to behave more sensibly.
The same absence of any opposition dominates amongst the trade union bureaucracy. At a time when British capitalism is speeding head on towards the iceberg of mass unemployment as furlough ends, these leaders can only beg the Tories for help. They have refused throughout this crisis to call any action in defence of jobs and conditions.
Indeed as we have seen this week, the leadership of the powerful Unite union has dropped any pretence of fighting for its members at BA and instead has surrendered to every demand made by the company for wage cuts and mass redundancies.
Instead of fighting for the working class, the Labour and trade union bureaucracy have become the main prop of this Tory government.
They are playing the role of keeping the working class in check, terrified that any call to action by workers will unleash a revolutionary tsunami that will overwhelm the Tories and the capitalist system they all serve.
What is clear is that this Tory government would not survive a day without the complicity and support of these treacherous union and Labour leaders.
The mobilisation of the working class in a general strike action would bring down this collapsing Tory government in hours and open the way for bringing in a workers government that will expropriate the bosses and bankers and go forward to building a socialist planned economy.
This is what the Labour and trade union leaders fear above all else. Removing these leaders and replacing them with a new revolutionary leadership that will organise the working class in the struggle for power is the burning issue of the day. Only the WRP is building the revolutionary leadership required to put an end to this bankrupt capitalists system – join today.
