IT says something about the depth of the capitalist crisis, and the lack of ability in the Cameron government, that Lord Heseltine, who in 1993 shut down the entire mining industry, destroying hundreds of thousands of jobs and many, many communities, is being called back from the edge of the grave to try to save the situation for capitalism.
Heseltine, in a review commissioned by the Cameron government, called ‘No Stone Unturned’ says that people think the UK ‘does not have a strategy for growth and wealth creation’.
He continued that the government should allocate growth funds to new Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) over the next few years.
He makes 89 recommendations to help industry. One of them is to move £49bn from central government to the regions to help local leaders and businesses.
The aim, he said, was to devolve power from Whitehall and re-invigorate the big cities that allegedly had fuelled the growth and wealth that the UK had experienced in past decades.
Labour said his message was ‘a damning indictment’ of the government, while Heseltine commented ‘I have told it as I see it, but I have told it in a way that is very supportive of the government.’
His main proposals for ‘the worst economic crisis of modern times’ are
• creating a national growth council, chaired by the Prime Minister, with a cross-government focus on driving growth
• a major devolution of funding
• making a smaller and more skilled government machine
• enhancing the standing of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) to bring together private and public sectors
• more government leadership for major infrastructure projects
• a role for employers in education
This is a policy designed to draw trade unions into supporting state funding for private industry, and then as good ‘partners’ agreeing to wage cuts, and wage freezing, no strike agreements and a host of other corporatist measures to try to make the projects successful.
Shifting £49 billion from the centre means closing down whole government departments and sacking hundreds of thousands of civil servants.
A role for employers in education means privately run Academies everywhere, with compulsory work experience attached, making youth work for nothing. Bringing the private and public sectors together means abolishing the public sector.
Only fools and traitors to the working class will accept this programme, which leads remorselessly to a national government of partnership.
Labour’s Shadow business secretary, Chuka Umunna, said yesterday that aspects of Lord Heseltine’s report chimed with Labour’s own industrial policy.
This was the cue for the TUC to step forward to join hands with Heseltine, a politician who is steeped in the class war against the working class and the trade unions, and who insists that the economic policy of the Cameron government is ‘taking the right path to recovery’.
Brendan Barber commented: ‘The TUC shares Lord Heseltine’s vision of collaboration between the public and private sectors, with unions and employers working together to promote growth.
‘But he will have his work cut out in convincing ministers of this new approach, who are going to have to change their attitude towards civil servants, public bodies and unions if they want this strategy to succeed.’
The last TUC Congress passed a motion that the TUC would examine the practicalities of a general strike against the government.
Now Barber is agreeing to join hands with a major enemy of the working class and the unions, to form a partnership with the bosses and the government that will pave the way for a National Government.
Barber is quitting the TUC shortly. Workers must tell the TUC get on with the job of organising a general strike to bring down the coalition and that all those TUC leaders who support Barber must resign at once.