THE TORY government has made it crystal clear that its current reorganisation is being made in order to carry out a very serious assault on the jobs, wages, basic rights and the futures of workers, young and old. Nobody is going to be too young or too old to be the object of savage cuts, all for the benefit of the British ruling class.
The new combination of ex-Health Secretary Hunt and the now well-beaten Truss intends to go for the jugular as far as the working class, the youth, the elderly and the poor are concerned.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said that deep spending cuts are inevitable, and that the government faces having to make ‘big and painful’ spending cuts to put the ruling classes’ finances on a ‘sustainable’ path.
Chancellor Hunt’s strategy, which includes keeping income tax at current levels, comes after economists warned the government faced a £60bn black hole in the public finances following last month’s mini-budget.
On Monday, Hunt shelved almost all of Kwarteng’s tax changes and said he would scale back support for household energy bills. But experts believe there is still a black hole of up to £40bn in the public finances to fill.
He warned that, on 31 October, he will give further details of a plan to reduce the UK’s debt burden and did not rule out changes to the pension triple lock – a real threat to millions of pensioners.
The cap on bankers’ bonuses will stay lifted and benefits won’t be increased in line with inflation.
Paul Johnson, director of the IFS, added: ‘Jeremy Hunt will have to make some scary decisions on tax and spend (in his economic statement on 31 October) this Halloween.’
He added: ‘There are no easy options here. It is hard to see which of the big chunks of spending – health, pensions, welfare, education and defence – can be cut.’ However, these are exactly where the big spending cuts to come will be savagely carried out.
With the current UK imperialist determination to use war in the Ukraine to try to beat down Russia, the reality is that defence cuts are out of the question, and that a big leap in defence spending is at hand.
In fact, the Resolution Foundation (RF) has warned that spending cuts could be as deep as those after the 2008 financial crisis, and that even middle-income families will be unable to pay energy bills next year after the decision to end the energy support package. They will be asked to sit back and watch their children freeze and go hungry.
RF chief executive, Torsten Bell, told the BBC’s Today programme: ‘If we are talking of spending cuts between £30-40bn then they’re not that far off the scale of the cuts announced by George Osborne back in 2010.’
In this situation, where the class struggle is sharpening immeasurably, workers are absolutely determined to fight tooth-and-nail to see that their families are fed, clothed and housed.
It is at this point that the British TUC has chosen to reveal its crass stupidity, treachery and determination not to challenge the British bosses, by keeping the working class marching up the hill and down again, instead of calling a general strike to bring the Tories down.
At the current TUC Congress, TUC leader Frances O’Grady welcomed delegates saying: ‘Welcome to the TUC, our parliament for working people’, not understanding that she was insulting them by comparing their Congress to a parliamentary talking shop!
She said: ‘Represented, here in the hall today, are millions of workers who keep the wheels of this country turning. All they ask in return is respect, and fair pay. And if it takes strike action, so be it: we stand with you.’
O’Grady has not yet heard that we are in the middle of the biggest strike wave for years when workers are showing the bosses their strength and defiance.
All she exhibited was the weakness of the trade union bureaucracy when she revealed that all the TUC will do is to call another lobby of parliament in November.
With these few words she made it clear that she does not intend that the TUC leads or calls any strike action at this Congress! It is to be a parliamentary-type talking shop!
Any serious leader would have put down a motion calling a general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers’ government. Delegates must see to it that calling a general strike at this Congress to bring down the Tories and to go forward to a workers’ government and a socialist planned economy is discussed and voted on and organised. This is the way forward!
