Vote Socialist on Thursday
Three brands of the same cheap soap powder would offer more excitement than this election! It is as if we live in a one-party regime divided into three wings: New Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.
Peter Taaffe, Socialist Party general secretary and Philip Stott, Secretary Socialist Party Scotland
‘Change’ is in the air – especially from Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems – and yet, as the French say, ‘everything changes so everything remains the same’. All the parties agree that the axe will be taken to the living standards of working-class people, irrespective of which type of government emerges from the election; all that is under dispute is the size of the axe to complete the job. An unofficial coalition already exists on the need for ‘sacrifices’, cuts, from the working class.
In Scotland the SNP have posed to the left of the main parties, claiming that more SNP MPs will mean fewer cuts. And yet it is clear, in action, that the SNP are just as prepared to take the axe to public services as the other pro business parties. The nationalists have a controlling influence in 40% of Scotland’s 32 councils and form the minority administration in the Scottish parliament. In every case they are carrying out cuts and in the case of Edinburgh are threatening to “outsource” ie privatise up to a third of council services. Working class people looking for an alternative to the cuts agenda will have to look elsewhere.
Consequently, even the satirists are virtually redundant in this election campaign. The makers of Spitting Image complained that there are no “distinguishing lines” in the main parties or their leaders. To have caricatures, you must first have characters! It is a case of the bland leading the bland.
The presidential-style debates of the three main party leaders are a further degeneration of British elections into a personality contest – a political ‘X-Factor’ – with commentators swooning because Clegg looks straight into the camera with his puppy-dog eyes. Yet beneath the froth, the ‘surge’ for the Lib Dems after the first TV debate does denote the desperate search for an alternative to the pro-big business, pro-market, pro-wealthy and powerful interests, which all the main parties and their leaders in reality espouse.
The mass of the British people are way to the left of the marionettes who appear on our screens. Johann Hari pointed out in the Independent: “58% support a dramatic increase in the minimum wage. 58% want to ditch Trident – an act of unilateral nuclear disarmament. 77% want to bring the troops home from Afghanistan now, or within a year at the latest. 53% say people come out of prison worse than they go in, and would rather spend money on more youth clubs than on more prison places”. Yet few of these proposals get onto the airwaves.
Shameful
The shameful dumbing down of politics at the time of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, affecting millions, reveals a hollow shell of democracy. This goes together with the virtual outlawing of strikes by unelected judges and the crowding out of even the small voice of dissent of left forces like the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), which has been kept off the television and radio, let alone the press.
And yet, despite the domination of the airwaves by empty rhetoric , this election and its outcome could be very important.
The most striking feature demonstrated in the polls is the lack of authority, the absence of ‘legitimacy’ for any of the three major parties. They will lack a mandate to savage the rights and conditions of the working class after 6 May, as they intend.
In any post-election scenario, Britain faces a period of unprecedented turmoil. Even ‘moderate’ trade union leader Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, has warned that “the next government will face the biggest wave of militancy since the 1980s if it tries to force through thousands of job cuts”. However Prentis has not matched his words with deeds in the past and therefore Unison members must press for this promise to be fully implemented.
Working class people generally must prepare for the events ahead, with the immediate step being to vote on 6 May for TUSC candidates and other genuine and principled left candidates where they are standing.
Socialist Party/Socialist Alternative candidates are standing in the general and local elections as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) and the STUSC in Scotland.
For more information see: www.tusc.org.uk
STUSC candidates in Scotland are:
Glasgow South West – Tommy Sheridan
Glasgow South – Brian Smith
Glasgow North – Angela McCormick
Glasgow North East – Graham Campbell
Edinburgh East – Gary Clark
Edinburgh North and Leith – Willie Black
Midlothian – Willie Duncan
Motherwell and Wishaw – Ray Gunnion
Dundee West – Jim McFarlane
Inverness – George McDonald
