ON Wednesday mid-day, ex-ministers Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon sent a text to all Labour MPs asking them to support a call for a secret MPs ballot on whether they supported the leader, Prime Minister Brown, or not.
They made the call, but the expected Labour reinforcements, from its cabinet, failed to rally to the cause.
Harman, Straw, Miliband, Jowell and Mandelson, after a period of diplomatic silence, did not answer the call, leaving the Blairite duo of mutineers isolated.
However the Tories did manage to rally to the cause – perhaps they had advance notification.
Despite the fact that Wednesday’s texts were sent out at mid-day, the Tory Party was able to commission and get produced a number of huge advertisement hoardings in London, declaring their solidarity with the rebels.
The giant lit up hoarding at Old Street roundabout, in East London, early Thursday morning, had big pictures of Hoon and Hewitt, plus a Tory declaration – ‘We have had enough too!’
This is a case of the desperate economic and political crisis of British capitalism causing right wing politicians to act desperately, just a few months before a general election, to bring together a political leadership capable of making the working class and the middle class pay the full bill for the bosses’ and bankers’ crisis of capitalism.
Certainly those involved in this would-be coup, from Hoon, apparently right over to Cameron, did not show any confidence that a general election could resolve the crisis in the leadership of the bourgeoisie, since they were not prepared to leave the matter of Brown’s future to the hands of the electorate.
The huge issue remains that the next government, despite all the general election soft soap, including that the Tories love the NHS, and really really love the poor, will have to slash and burn the Welfare State, the NHS, state education, higher education – removing the cap on tuition fees – and privatise the entire public sector, as well as raising taxes to cut wages, which are going to be frozen for two years, and cut pensions.
They will be carrying out these savage cuts at the same time as they will be expanding the military budget so as to be able to fight wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Yemen and perhaps Somalia and Iran at the same time.
Truly then, those who who have sown the wind will reap the whirlwind of working class and middle class anger.
No wonder all of the brands of bourgeois politicians are very nervous and fearful about this situation.
Mandelson, who could not be persuaded, this time round, to join the band of assassins, has some idea of what is going to have to be done.
In his Going for Growth speech to The Work Foundation he stated: ‘This week marks the start of a new decade in which we know the economy will come under fiercer competitive challenge than ever before, as the world tilts further east towards China and the other emerging economies.’
Having identified the foreign enemy he proceeded to deal with the enemy at home.
He said: ‘December’s PBR has a clear objective – to halve the deficit by 2013-14. It is bold and tough: the equivalent of something approaching an £80 billion turnaround in the public finances. This is the sharpest reduction in the budget deficit for any G7 country.’
It is to be an £80bn cut in three years.
He also revealed his Thatcherite inspiration: ‘The 1980s saw the timely privatisation of industries that were long overdue for return to the commercial sector. Industrial relations underwent a sea change.’
He declares: ‘First and foremost we need to foster a new climate for enterprise in Britain. . . . It can sometimes be a touch ruthless and raw. But it is the single most important engine of economic progress.’
Mandelson publicly indicates what is in store for the working class.
It is clear that only a socialist revolution can provide a future for the working people of the UK.