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A SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY LEAFLET

HOUSTON: WE HAVE A PROBLEM

The Bailout Illusion & the Crisis of Capitalism

Astronaut James Lovell is credited with the famous words ‘Houston: we have a problem’ (he actually said ‘Houston: we’ve had a problem’) transmitted to NASA from the ill-fated Apollo 13 lunar-landing mission, when it was crippled by an explosion during its 1970 flight. Lovell reveals that one of the most frequent questions he was later asked was ‘Did you have suicide pills on board?’

Although today, another catastrophe, the financial crisis hitting Wall Street and the rest of the world economy, has not as yet seen the financiers and bankers reaching for their suicide pills or jumping to their deaths from office windows, as occurred after the 1929 Wall Street crash, it has unfortunately already seen the rest of the population suffer thousands of home repossessions, the collapse of their pensions and a significant rise in unemployment. Perhaps today the financial sector is more confident that the burden of their crisis can be put entirely onto the backs of working people?

The bailout package recently pushed through the United States Senate and House of Representatives represents the greatest transfer of public money to the financial sector in US history, whilst offering no protection to the millions of workers and their families, who are the real victims of this unfolding social disaster. Moreover, the $700 billion bailout is merely a drop in the ocean because the full extent of the debts of the financial sector is estimated to run into trillions of dollars.

Likewise in the UK, the Brown government are committed to bailing out the banks and financial institutions and are perfectly willing to use taxpayers money to cover worthless mortgage-backed securities. Having already poured more than £100 billion into Northern Rock, more than the entire annual budget of the NHS, the government also agreed to cover Bradford & Bingleys £51 billion mortgages and loans, yet its savings arm and its 197 branches are to be taken over by the Spanish bank, Santander for a mere £600 million.

This bailing out of the financial sector by the Labour government, in effect privatising profits and socialising losses, is in sharp contrast to its attacks on welfare, pensions, health and education. Furthermore, by pumping billions of pounds of taxpayers money into the banks and financial institutions to keep them afloat and by guaranteeing to cover their losses and take on worthless securities, the government is running the risk of state bankruptcy.

The problem with once being hailed as the Chancellor who ‘overcame the economic cycle of boom and bust’ is that reality has a tendency to assert itself and deliver a hefty slap around one’s head. Gordon Brown should now know this better than most.

Yet he is currently proclaiming that he will do ‘whatever it takes to defend the British financial system’ and that ‘My job is night and day to work for the stability of the system’ apparently forgetting that capitalism is an inherently unstable economic system.

Moreover, current Chancellor Alistair Darling, trying hard to run Gordon Brown close for the title of the man who understands nothing, announced to the Commons on 6^th October that ‘we will not rely on panic measures’ shortly before injecting a further £50 billion into the banking system backed with another £450 billion in short term loans and loan guarantees. (No panic there then).

This giveaway of Britain’s wealth was conducted behind closed doors between Brown and the financial elite, and was not put to any form of democratic discussion; with parliament only being informed after the deal was done.

This situation, whereby an unelected prime minister is giving away billions of pounds of public money to the wealthiest in society, with the British government having no direct control of the institutions he is pouring the money into, with neither Brown nor the financiers seeing any need to discuss this with any democratically elected representative, should serve as a warning that when the existence of capitalism is at stake, all talk of democracy and democratic norms go out of the window.

Subprime Mortgages

The current tendency to lay the blame for the crisis on US subprime mortgages and to say that capitalism at present is infested with financial risk-takers, and if only this tendency was curbed, we could return to a more ‘enlightened capitalism’ is sheer nonsense and shows a complete lack of understanding of capitalism and its workings.

Even a cursory glance over recent history reveals capitalism’s struggle to off-set the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. The ending of the post-war boom period saw the suspending of the Bretton Woods agreement by the Nixon administration in 1971.

This agreement, made at the end of World War Two, was an attempt to stabilise the world economy by establishing the convertibility of the dollar into gold, however the falling rate of profit and the increasing debt of the main post-war economy, the United States, brought this to an end.

The result was that no currency had any objective measure of value and its exchange rate was dependent on such subjective factors as ‘moods’ and ‘confidence’ for what were, in effect, credit notes.

The rise of finance capital and the mass privatisation programmes of state industries beginning in the late 1970s, was followed in the 80s by the unregulated introduction of vast amounts of credit into the system; the proliferation of credit cards, building societies becoming banks and so forth, and the introduction of various financial instruments, of which subprime mortgages was merely one.

However these attempts to extract profit from workers outside the production process were necessary developments for capitalism to maintain the rate of profit, and not merely developments emanating from the desire of one capitalist politician or another. On the contrary, profound economic processes have led capitalism into the crisis it faces today.

Needless to say, the hedge fund manager or financial trader is not conscious of the contradictions within the system. For them an analysis covers weeks and months only, not decades or centuries. They do what they think is necessary to make their bonuses each month and have no regard for the social implications of their actions on the vast majority of the population.

Who Will Pay?

These historic processes have now led to record levels of social inequality, both in the US and UK whereby since 1997 alone, under this Labour government, the top one percent of Britain’s richest individuals have seen their wealth increase by 152 percent.

In contrast, the poorest 50 percent of the population have seen their share of the nation’s wealth actually decrease over the same period.

To now expect Britain, with its central role in the world’s financial markets, to somehow ‘maintain stability’ during the forthcoming period is pure wishful thinking on Brown and Darling’s part.

The crisis for Britain is compounded by the dominant role of finance capital in the economy. At the time of the 1945-51 Labour government, Britain’s economy was based on an 80% manufacturing base – today Britain has a manufacturing base of less than 20% with over 80% of the economy based in the service and financial sectors.

Consequently it now relies first and foremost on the speculative activities of its financial sector and has no fall-back position, meaning it is exposed more than most to any monetary crisis, especially one as deep as the current crisis.

Nevertheless the deepening financial crisis will only serve to spur on the Labour government’s privatisation plans as they attempt to impose the full effects of the crisis onto the backs of workers. It is their belief that every penny spent on unemployment and incapacity benefits, on pensions and on health, is a drain on profits.

Attempting to take the losses off the financial elite and impose them on the rest of the population will mean growing unemployment alongside massive cuts in public expenditure, affecting the health and education budgets and state pensions.

It is generally accepted, even in ruling circles, that the current economic crisis is the deepest since 1929. Let us recall: to overcome that crisis the world was plunged into the Great Depression of the 1930s, mass unemployment, followed by the rise of fascism and a world war costing the lives of millions of workers.

Shall we walk into that scenario again, this time with nuclear options?

This begs the response that the struggle for, and the establishing of, a socialist system is not merely a preference, but is an absolute necessity.

www.socialist-labour-party.org.uk

AL GORE & the Nobel Peace Prize 2007.

In the 1990’s Al Gore was a leading cheerleader for the bombing and destruction of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

In 1992, in support of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, Gore berated George Bush Sr for being ‘soft on Saddam Hussein’.

In January 1993 Gore announced that there could never be normal relations with Iraq so long as Saddam remained in power. He reiterated his call for a coup, if not by the Iraqi military then by the CIA.

Right before the 2000 election Gore called for expansion of the no-fly zones in Iraq and said that any Iraqi plane venturing into such zones should be shot down.

During the Clinton Administration, vice president Al Gore was given authority for Iraq policy. It was under his watch and advocacy that the US launched 23 missiles on Baghdad, eight of which hit the residential Mansour suburb of Baghdad, one of them killing Leila al-Attar, a prominent Iraqi artist.

According to Clinton's pollster Stan Greenberg, the bombing of Baghdad caused an uptick of 11 points in Clinton's popularity, a lesson Clinton and Gore did not forget. Years later, in the 2000 campaign, Gore out-hawked George Bush Jr on the subject of finishing the job in Iraq.

(Above extracts taken from Al Gore’s Peace Prize – Alexander Cockburn at counterpunch)
 
The above record of Mr Gore is the kind of history that befits a ‘peace prize’ winner? 
Of course, more recently Gore is known for his documentary on climate change, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, a film that the British government have announced will be screened in all English secondary schools, this despite the fact that a British court has ruled that the documentary contains nine (9) scientific errors.

This government decision, together with the Nobel prize is better understood when it is known that Gore, since his early political days in Tennessee, is a strong advocate of nuclear power, which is an industry that stands to gain much from the climate change debate.
 
Moreover, it is little realised just what a major business climate change now is. With carbon trading, carbon credits, offsetting schemes and the creation of carbon trading exchanges, carbon futures and the European Emissions Trading Scheme, the world’s largest carbon market, this is now a multi-billion pound industry.
 
For instance, immediately the carbon market was established both BP and Shell made millions of pounds profit without having to reduce any emissions whatsoever.
 
Tellingly, it is the financial institutions that generate the greatest profits, with three quarters of all carbon revenues being handled by the London market. Indeed, it was the Blair government in 2002 who were the first to establish a ‘national carbon market’.

Spokesman like Gore are crucial to the continued growth of this profitable market, all to the benefit of the rich countries and to the detriment of the poorest.

The financial sector are eagerly anticipating the next ‘climate change’ agreement which will take the place of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and licking their lips at the prospect of involving the lucrative Asian market.
 
Quite modestly Mr Gore said he would donate his share of the prize money that goes with the Nobel award ($1.5 million) to the ‘Alliance for Climate Protection’, described as ‘a non-profit organization devoted to conveying the urgency of solving the climate crisis’.
 
 However, Gore forgot to mention that the chairman of this organisation is…………….Al Gore. 
 Ends.

DETACHED FROM REALITY

A report issued by the Save the Children organization for 2006 reveals that nearly 4 million children are now living in poverty in Britain, the highest number for ten years. The report explains that a lot of of these children live in households where income is so low that basic needs such as heating and a proper diet are not being met, with many families, consisting of two adults and one child, trying to survive on little over £100 per week.

Save the Children said it was an ‘outrage’ that so many children are missing out on basic requirements such as living in a warm home, having a good diet or going on a school trip.

Apparently oblivious to this grim reality, the Labour government is launching an enquiry as to why the Child Trust Fund accounts, started by them in 2002, are not working.

The Child Trust Fund is a savings and investment account open to children born after September 2002 whereby the parents receive a £250 voucher to start the account and then are expected to put money into the account until the child is eighteen. (The account cannot be touched until the child is 18).

Only a government so detached from reality could fail to understand that a family on little more than £100 per week cannot cover heating, food, clothes, water, gas, electric etc and still have money left over to put into a ‘savings and investment’ account!

Just to underline their irrationality, the government paid financial adviser Alvin Hall £75,000 to promote the Child Trust scheme.

JUSTICE FOR THE SHREWSBURY PICKETS

ARTHUR SCARGILL ADDRESSES PACKED CAMPAIGN MEETING

A packed ‘Justice for the Shrewsbury Pickets’ meeting in Shotton, North Wales held on the 26th January 2007 heard SLP leader and honorary president of the NUM Arthur Scargill pay tribute to the 1972 struggle of the building workers and in particular to the 24 pickets who were charged with ‘conspiracy’, a charge which the then Tory government had dragged up from an Act of 1875!

To thunderous applause Scargill drew parallels with the great miners’ struggles of the 70s and 80s and linked the building workers fight to the class struggle today, pointing out the betrayals of the TUC leadership and explaining that it is only the strength of workers united in struggle that can bring about effective change.

In a speech peppered with humorous anecdotes he exposed the class nature of the ‘law’ by outlining the fight conducted by the NUM against the sequestration of its funds during the great miners’ strike of 84/85.

To a standing ovation Arthur concluded his speech with an endorsement of the Shrewsbury Campaign’s demand calling for a national open public enquiry into the trial of the pickets and the jailing of innocent men.

Earlier Ricky Tomlinson, one of the jailed pickets, made an emotional and moving contribution and told the meeting of the wretched conditions, harsh treatment, persecution and loss of remission that was suffered by the imprisoned building workers, which resulted from, as Ricky explained, their insistence that they were political prisoners. Tomlinson informed the meeting of the effect the harsh treatment had had, particularly on the health of Des Warren who was given what is known as the ‘liquid cosh’, but despite this they could not break him mentally.

(In his 1973 speech from the dock Des Warren highlighted the political nature of industrial action when he stated: " It is a fact of life – entirely due to Acts of Parliament – every strike which takes place is regarded as a political act. It therefore follows that every action taken in furtherance of an industrial dispute also becomes a political act").

At the end of the meeting scores of the book ‘The Enemy Within’ were sold and it was a full ninety minutes before Arthur Scargill had finished signing copies for the buyers.

Campaign Secretary Mike Abbott advised the audience that this Shotton meeting would be one of many that would be held throughout the country in pursuit of the campaign’s just demands.

A BBC camera crew filmed the meeting for a documentary to be shown in the spring as part of the BBC1 series ‘One Life’.

If you would like to be kept informed of future meetings in support of the Shrewsbury Pickets please let the SLP General Secretary know on email info@socialist-labour-party.org.uk or write to SLP PO Box 112 Leigh WN7 4WS.

ENDS.

The Labour Government & the Disabled

"If the rest of the country knew what we were being paid, there would be tumbrels on the street and heads carried around on pikes."

David Freud. Labour government adviser on Welfare Reform.

David Freud is the government adviser and the author behind Labour’s Welfare to Work strategy, part of the Welfare Reform programme announced recently by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) which claims that 1.9 million people on Incapacity Benefit, from a total of 2.6 million who qualify, are capable of seeking employment and should be taken off benefit.

Mr Freud offers no evidence to support the conclusion that such a vast number of people are in fact ‘malingerers’ so we must assume that amongst his many talents Mr Freud is a psychic.

Mr Freud claims that family GPs should not be entrusted with determining if people receive incapacity benefit or not, obviously unaware that GPs are not involved in that decision anyway.

Freud recommends the DWP use a private sector company who’s task it will be to get the sick and disabled off benefits and into work, any kind of work, and the outside company will be paid according to results, the more people driven off benefit the more the private sector company earns. As David Freud commented to the Telegraph of 2nd February 2008, the scheme can be extremely lucrative to the companies who throw people off benefits "We can pay masses” stressed Mr Freud.

In order to create the correct climate to enable the government to throw the sick and disabled off benefits, Freud and the government are launching a propaganda campaign designed to create the impression that basically anyone who claims benefits is a ‘scrounger’ and ‘malingerer’.

‘Now Public’ website commented:

“Benefits and Work believes that David Freud has breached the Civil Service Code in relation to honesty and integrity.

The continued portrayal of the majority of sick and disabled claimants as people who can and should be in work is causing real terror and misery for people who know this is not the case and who fear for the future.

His claims that two thirds of incapacity benefit claimants shouldn't be getting the benefit have been repeated throughout the media and by politicians, leading to a widespread belief that the majority of claimants are work shy scroungers rather than genuinely sick people. There is not a shred of evidence to support his utterly irresponsible guesstimate”.

In view of his radical assessment on the nature of health incapacity, what experience of the health service does Mr Freud actually possess?

The answer is none whatsoever, in fact his main work experience has been as an investment banker, most notably for Warburgs (now UBS) one of the leading British investment banks. Prior to that Freud worked at the stockbrokers Rowe & Pitman and, as he admitted in the Telegraph interview, it was during his time there that he engaged in activities that would today be classed as illegal. Also, it was during his work in the City that Freud confided to his deputy, “If the rest of the country knew what we were being paid, there would be tumbrels on the street and heads carried around on pikes." (A tumbrel is an open cart, especially used to carry condemned people to the guillotine during the French Revolution).

A brief investigation into other Freud activities proves enlightening. According to an interview which appeared in the Guardian 4th August 2006, “a member of his own team called him the "Fraud Squad" because of his ability to heavily promote new share issues that subsequently tanked”.

Furthermore, it was Freud’s consortium that had to ask for a further £1.2bn from public coffers for the Channel rail link, and both Eurotunnel and Euro Disney flotations, in which he was also involved, are instances were “investors lost millions.”

David Freud is no stranger to unpopular decisions as he himself boasted when commenting on the takeover of the Swedish tanker company Smedvig, which he called the "fastest hostile takeover recorded in Europe in modern times"

Producing the Freud Report for the DWP is not the first time he has worked closely with this Labour government. He was involved in the reckless move to privatise Britain’s air traffic control and put the safety of millions of passengers into the hands of private companies operating on a profit first policy. His hand can also be seen in the destruction and privatisation of Royal Mail and currently, as chief executive of the Portland Trust, he is advising on economic issues in the Middle East, meaning the continued privatisation of Iraq’s once state run industries.

That the Labour government should commission a Welfare Report from someone like David Freud reveals clearly this government’s intention to privatise all areas of the public sector and moreover, their willingness to attack the most vulnerable in society to do it.

Ends.

The Labour Government & the Disabled

Part Two

Following the Department for Work and Pensions announcement of the Freud Report, which will mean using private sector companies to drive sick and disabled people off benefits and into employment, invariarably low paid, the Labour government came up with the spin that this move would enable disabled people ‘the dignity of working’ and the feeling that they are ‘contributing to society’.

To examine if these comments contain even an ounce of sincerity one only needs to look at the situation regarding the Remploy factories.

Remploy is a government-owned manufacturing firm which has more than 6,000 disabled employees in 83 factories around the UK, including highly skilled workers producing items such as furniture and electronics.

It was set up in 1944 to employ disabled Second World War veterans, with the first factory opening in 1946. More recently it has provided secure, supported employment for thousands of disabled people in the UK.

Last year the Labour government announced that 43 of these factories were to close. However, in an attempt to divide the solidarity of the workforce the government strategy is to shut these factories in stages and at present 28 are earmarked for closure, although it is obvious that once this figure is accomplished the remaining factories will then be targeted.

In protest at the announced closures, on the 27th November 2007, a group of eleven Remploy workers occupied the foyer of the Department of Work and Pensions’ head office with three of them chaining themselves to chairs in the foyer.

The protesters chanted: ‘We want to see Peter Hain! ’ (then Work and Pensions secretary) and ‘Stop the factory closures!’

Police were called and after an hour’s stand-off Hain’s principal permanent secretary John Oliver came out to speak to the occupiers. Les Woodward of the GMB trade union, reminded him that Hain had promised at the Labour Party conference, to use public procurement to keep Remploy factories open and added “‘When the closure announcement was made on May 22, one person committed suicide.’

The Remploy workers were assured that Peter Hain “cares deeply about Remploy.” 
 
On the 29th November 2007, just two days after they were assured that Peter Hain “cares deeply about Remploy” Hain, on behalf of the Labour government, confirmed that they would proceed with the closure of 28 Remploy factories, with the loss of 2,000 supported jobs and added in his House of Commons statement that the closure of some Remploy premises will cause ‘disappointment’
 
Paul Kenny, GMB General Secretary said: “This government controlled operation has failed its people, its principles and its purpose”

Moreover, as the consortium of trade unions representing the workforce has stressed, most of Remploy's skilled workers now face a future of shelf-stacking or will never find jobs.

The Observer of 9th March 2008 quoted Remploy worker David Reed, "Everyone was very upset.
 
We have a lot of people with severe learning difficulties and they were bewildered, trying to understand what was happening."

Mr Reed has been partially-sighted since being diagnosed with a brain tumour when he was seven, he works at the furniture factory in Aintree, near Liverpool, which is to close. He has been with Remploy for 20 years, and now feels he would find mainstream employment difficult. "Put me outside and I'll be treated like an idiot. If I had to go to Asda and Tesco, I couldn't make it across the car park without bumping into a car."

The social consequences of the Remploy closures can also be seen in a letter sent by Phil Davies, in his capacity as secretary of the consortium of trade unions, to James Purnell, the new Secretary of State for Works and Pensions in which Davies explained “When I visited York I was asked by a woman called Tracey why she will have to lose her job and what will happen to her friends? Tracy is 44 years of age and has severe learning difficulties; her father is 75 years old and he told me that he and her mother do not know what to do about caring for Tracey. ‘The evening and weekends are hard enough but for Tracey to lose her job at the Remploy factory will mean she will also lose her friends.’ Mr Purnell, you can stop this particular factory from closing, you can help Tracey and her comrades at York.”

However, given the choice between helping the ‘Tracey’s’ of this world, or further enriching the bankers and financial institutions, then for the Labour government there is simply no contest, in today’s parlance, it is a no-brainer.

Naturally, even after the demise of Peter Hain, the Labour government continued its attack on society’s most vulnerable and Phil Davies, also national secretary for the GMB union, ripped up his Labour party card in disgust. In his resignation letter he stated, “We have been misled by the Secretary of State, who made assurances at the 2007 Labour Party conference which he did not keep. I have been a national trade union officer for 20 years and have never seen workers treated in such a despicable way. Our members are being ignored and bullied into submission.”
 
The situation at Remploy exposes the spin and outright lies of the Labour government.

No mention here of ‘the dignity of working’ and giving the disabled the feeling that they are ‘contributing to society’.

At first glance it would appear contradictory that the government are, on the one hand, as acknowledged in the DWP Freud report, throwing the disabled off benefits and driving them into unsuitable and low paid work, and on the other hand, closing down Remploy factories which were specifically established to give the disabled meaningful and skilled work opportunities.

Such hypocrisy would not be new of course, but the fact is that there is an underlying consistency to the shameful behaviour of the Labour government, and that is that both of these apparently contradictory actions are designed to achieve the same result, the slashing of public spending.

This is not only in line with European Union directives to reduce public expenditure but continues the policy of shifting the wealth of society further away from the poor and into the hands of a rich elite.
 
It is this layer of the obscenely wealthy that all the mainstream parties now represent. In opposition to this the Socialist Labour Party seeks to construct a movement that will not pamper to the parasites of finance capital, but will truly represent the interests, hopes and aspirations, of the overwhelmimg majority of the people of Britain. 
   
Join us.

Ends.