ADDRESSING the bosses of the Scottish CBI, Prime Minister Gordon Brown assured them that his government will not be giving workers, the poor and the elderly any one-off payment, to help with the fuel bills that have rocketed up by 30 per cent this year.
The prime minister damned aid for workers and the poor by telling the bosses that there will be no ‘short-term gimmicks or giveaways’.
The poor will have to look after themselves and insulate their lofts – a modern version of Marie Antoinette’s response of ‘let them eat cake’ when she was told that the people were crying out for bread.
In fact, the fate of Marie Antoinette, and the ruling class which she represented, was sealed by this carefree attitude to the starvation of the poor.
Brown’s betrayal of the working class is sealing the fate of the Labour Party, and also that of the ruling class that it serves. Brown’s betrayal is all the more stark since his regime has already handed out £200 billion of taxpayers’ money to the bankers, who are responsible for the current ‘credit crisis’ in the first place.
The bankers are being coddled while the workers and the poor are being treated like absolute dirt, by ‘their’ government, and by the banks who are repossessing their homes in record numbers.
The energy companies, meanwhile, have been paying out record dividends to their shareholders, while pushing up their prices ever higher.
Brown is not the only one of the Labourite leaders showing off his anti-working class and pro-ruling class zeal.
Among the others is ex-Home Secretary Blunkett. He also spoke up yesterday to say that pensioners cannot expect to be ‘sustained’ by the state in retirement, and that in future people will have to work ‘to the point of incapacity’.
These same pensioners had throughout their working lives been creating the surplus value that forms the substance of the bankers and bosses profits!
Even the Tory press was taken aback by Blunkett’s cold audacity, declaring that this was Labour advocating work till you drop.
Brown and Blunkett were joined by Labour ‘loyalists’ who declared that Windfall Taxes on oil, gas and energy companies were no-goers, and were not only undesirable but would not work since the companies would simply continue pushing their prices up.
How wrong they are. In fact it will not be long before their goading gets a revolutionary response from the working class!
Oil, gas and energy companies that won’t reduce their prices must be nationalised and put under workers control, a 100 per cent sure way of organising massive cuts in prices.
Since capitalism can no longer sustain the working class then it will be overthrown and be replaced by a higher, socialist order of society.
Trade union leaders such as UNITE’s Tony Woodley said yesterday that they are disgusted by the attitude of Brown and Blunkett.
Yet it was trade union leaders such as Woodley who were absolutely determined that Brown was to be Prime Minister and refused to back the candidature of John McDonnell for the Labour leadership in any way.
Now despite being shocked and disgusted they are refusing to take any action to defend the working class and the poor. Rather than call a general strike they would prefer to see a return of the Tories.
But a general strike is what has to be organised and called to bring down the Brown government and bar the road to the return of the Tories by bringing in a workers’ government that will nationalise the banks, the energy companies and bring in socialism.
Delegates to the TUC Congress must make a good start to this necessary struggle by voting for the POA resolution demanding that the TUC call a series of one-day general strikes until the anti-union laws are smashed and broken.