All In This Together

We are all in this together (WAAITT) must be the words that come back to haunt George Osborne. They should be THE slogan on the lips of every activist for the duration of this economic crisis and this government (probably the latter will end first). They are just the perfect soundbite for any movement against the pure injustice that the Condems are about to dish out.

They are perfect because WAAITT states perfectly what a fair government would do. A government that wasn't a naked expression of privilege and entitlement would make those words a reality. They would state quite clearly that nobody should be in a position to take advantage of the British people whilst we work together to achieve economic recover. That the pain of paying off this debt should be felt equally by all of us. No, more than that, the people with the most resources should take as much of the strain as they can, to shield the vulnerable from the worst of it.

After all, a recession hurts the people at the bottom of the pile more. Those with the worst jobs, are those with the most precarious jobs, so they are more likely to find themselves unemployed. They are the ones with the least savings so they are the most likely to find themselves dependent on state assistance should the worst happen. They are the ones with the least qualifications so the most likely to find themselves out of work for the longest period (whatever their efforts).

So, a fair government would say WAAITT, and they would act on it. They would place the burden of the crisis on those best able to carry it.

This government, on the other hand, has shown that it is determined to do precisely the opposite. It is not a fair government. It will not act on the principles of WAAITT. The burden of the crisis will not fall on those best able to carry it. It will fall, almost universally, on those with the least capacity.

Their cuts to public services will affect the social groups that use them most, that is, the people with the most need of state assistance. Their cuts to benefits and attacks on claimants will effect those with the least income. Their tax rises will be based on the most regressive of principles, indirect taxation. They will claim the money they need back through VAT, a tax that falls disproportionately on the poor. Whilst having the audacity to actually lower corporation tax. They will make no effort to close the tax loopholes that the ultrarich take advantage of, as they take advantage of them themselves.

They will do everything in their power to prevent finance capital from paying for the crisis it caused. Everything it does will expose WAAITT as a lie.

And every time they do, someone should be there to expose that lie. WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER. We, the 90% of ordinary citizens whose profits don't grow in a recession. Who don't generate those profits speculating on which country's economy will collapse next. We, are all in this together.

What Alan Duncan says about our political class

Listening to the radio the other day, I heard Tory blogger Iain Dale being interviewed about Alan Duncan's latest gaff. Obviously he agreed that the comments were ill-advised and that perhaps Duncan might have to apologise. But he didn't get to what I thought was the heart of the matter.

Look at these two statements, the first of which was not the headline quotes that the papers ran with the next day. The second of which is Duncan's apology.

"No one who has done anything in the outside world will ever come into this
place ever again, the way we are going."

"The last thing people want to hear is an MP whingeing about his pay and
conditions. My remarks, although meant in jest, were completely uncalled
for."

The papers all lead with 'MP whinges about pay', and quite right too, it's the money shot in terms of bang for your buck outrage. That's what Duncan responded to as well, noting that nobody wants to hear MPs complain about what are comparatively generous pay packages. The phrase 'they don't know they're born' comes to mind.

But I think there's something deeper to this, somewhere buried further inside people like Duncan that contains the real reason why they make comments like this. Look at that first comment again: For people like him the salary he gets wouldn't motivate anyone whose 'done anything' to go to parliament.

What he's saying, and I think this runs fairly deep among the majority of mainstream politicians is essentially anyone who doesn't earn considerably more than an MP (or isn't at least capable of it) isn't really much cop. Basically they can written off as having any skills worthy of bringing to public life.

The problem with that is that he's basically writing off 95% of the population. All the people who actually do all the work round here are basically little worker ants who need governing by clever chaps who can make lots of money. And they only way you bring them in is by greasing the wheels. People of quality are those that are attracted by and can make lots and lots of money. Basically we're all offensively useless because we can't muster the kind of success that they can.

And that was the question that should've been asked about these remarks. How many of our political class essentially regard working people in this country as idiots because they 'can't get on in life' and wish we could have a parliament made up of 'the right stuff?

this crisis is annoying, huh?

You wait 30 years for a crisis of capitalism, and when it comes you´re still not satisfied. I mean first off, for the most part, certainly the British Left, spent the last couple of decades intently staring at it´s own navel, fighting with each other, worrying about solidarity with villagers in South East Kurdistan, and generally doing anything except building a strong and lasting alternative to the political mainstream.

So, here we are in the midst of a big economic and political crisis and who benefits? The fucking Tories, the arseholes who actually designed the absurd economic system that left the UK so vulnerable. Now they´re getting to turn round and say, ooh, it´s Labour´s poor economic management you see. Of course, it´s no coincidence that the countries hardest hit are the one´s, like ours, that built in the highest degree of dependence on the finance, construction and retail sectors of the economy, and, not to go all shouty: THAT WAS EVERYONE´S IDEA, THE ENTIRE FUCKING POLITICAL CLASS, YOU DON´T GET TO DISOWN IT BECAUSE YOU AREN´T IN POWER.

Furthermore, it´s not badly managed, it´s not being taken advantage of by greedy businessmen (now, convenient hate figures, previously heroic wealth creators), the thing is functioning exactly how it was designed to. If you design a system in a certain way, and claim credit for it when it works, when everything goes wrong, you don´t get to just wash your hands of it.

Outside of the Tories, guess what, just like we warned when everyone was mincing around waving their lollipops about the war, the force that is probably going to explode over the next couple of truly depressing years will be ... fascism. Already the warnings are flooding in about the BNP getting to send off their little shaven-headed white power comrades to the European parliament. More than one anyway. Well, why? Why is it that form of extremism that´s getting play and not some variety of Leftism, or even, maybe, why not both. Because, the BNP have actually been on the streets doing ordinary everyday politics and, come the crisis that´s going to give them a base from which explode. The various groups of our side have spent the years complacently talking about a downturn as some kind of explanation for decline or stagnation, will now pay the price for neglecting the hard yards.

Aside from that, the protests that we´ve had over the past few months; the strikes, the demos, the throwing stuff at union reps. I mean. Nobody likes to say I told you so, but fuck me. Casualisation, agency work, subcontracting, privatisation. We said it made workers more vulnerable, we said it made them easy to fire, that in the end it was going to turn back the clock to Victorian labour relations, where we all go back to being in employment day by day at the employer´s discretion. We said the unions were fucking gash and wouldn´t, couldn´t do anything about this. And, lo, it came to be. Half the workers at Cowley were agency. How the fuck didn´t that get fought before the crisis? Why wait until employers don´t give a shit whether you strike or not? Why organise, why protest, when everything´s so bad that management don´t even care what you do? Why didn´t we do this shit when we actually had the leverage of being in boomtimes?

And bollocks to the boom, when was that? It´s not like we´ve all been living it up the last 15 years. Getting by, throwing a quarter of society on sink estates to rot in longterm unemployment and near destitution, other people watching their real wages slowly deteriorate, their pensions disappear, their rights eroded, their housing become prohibitively expensive, the cost of living steadily rising. Now what? Kicking millions out of work, probably millions more taking cuts or freezes. Everything still seems to cost as much, even though we´ve got less money. More jobless, more homeless, more cuts to the support system, more with less.

The question is: how angry are we, really?