TWO ex-Labour government leaders Clarke and Blunkett have now spoken up, true to form, to stab Prime Minister Brown in the back, just as the Labour ship is sinking.
The present disintegration of the Brown government could be seen in semblance in the contradictions that were there right at the beginning of the Blair-Brown governments in 1997.
They were elected by millions of workers and the majority of the middle class who were heartily sick and tired of Thatchers policies. Yet they continued them and made them even more anti-working class.
Theirs was the first Labour government to declare that they were launching a businessman’s government.
Accordingly, Brown put the Bank of England in charge of interest rates, and then embraced the Private Finance Initiative, while Blair declared a permanent revolution against the Welfare State, and hailed global capitalism and its worldwide chase for massive profits, as the ultimate society.
It was only a matter of time before it completely alienated the working class, and came into a collision with it.
The Brown government, with its determination to champion the interests of the big banks and to force the working class to pay the bill for this rescue operation, through massive cuts in the public sector, with wage freezes and mass sackings and through the privatisation of the Welfare State, is preparing a historic showdown between the working class and the ruling class.
This is why the Labour government and Labour party, still based on the trade unions, are disintegrating before the eyes of the people.
Clarke says that he is now ‘ashamed’ to be a Labour MP.
In fact, he played a central role in preparing the way for the forthcoming destruction of the Labour Party.
He was elected to the British House of Commons in the Labour landslide of 1997 and became an instant minister in 1998. As Education Secretary he pushed through the legislation to introduce top-up fees into university education, ignoring a government election pledge not to introduce such fees.
As Home Secretary he led the attack on civil liberties pushing through the identity card bill.
He was a main supporter of the Iraq war which was based on lies and resulted in the deaths of over a million Iraqis and saw up to four million of them turned into refugees.
He has got a lot to be ashamed of, his betrayals helped to create today’s Labour party debacle.
His cabinet ally, David Blunkett, has warned of a ‘catastrophic’ collapse in trust in the government.
Blunkett advises Brown that he must engage with the public on ‘grass-roots issues’. This at a time when unemployment is rising at the rate of 100,000 a month, when food prices are rising on a daily basis, when tens of thousands are losing their homes, and when the government is preparing 20 per cent cuts in the NHS budget.
Blunkett knows a lot about trust being a two-times resigner from the cabinet. He is known as the minister who betrayed the trust of millions of families and students when as education secretary, he imposed tuition fees into the universities, putting an end to free state education to the horror of millions who are now suffering because of it.
He proved to be a minister that the working class could not trust. As Home Secretary Blunkett described civil liberties as ‘airy fairy’ and his Criminal Justice Act 2003 reduced legal safeguards such as the right to trial by jury and double jeopardy rules.
What is now agitating these two Blairites is that their Labour party is on the rocks.
More and more workers are beginning to realise that the only way to keep the Tories out is for the working class to bring down the Brown government, to bring in a workers government that will carry out socialist policies, undoing the damage that Blair, Brown, Blunkett and Clarke have done.
