2015 and the bumpy road ahead for the UK

As we draw closer and closer towards the general election in 2015 there is much to be concerned and worried about going forward. Not least that whoever gains power next year be it a coalition or a majority government of any sort we will be in for a lot worse cuts and tax rises to come of that we can be in no doubt. “The Conservative-led coalition faces an election next May and its main pledge when it came into office in May 2010 was to ‘balance the budget’ and reduce government debt. After the huge bank bailout and the impact of the Great Recession of 2008-9 on tax revenues and welfare spending, the government deficit stood at over 10% of GDP and gross government debt had rocketed to over 75% of GDP. The government blamed this on the profligacy of the previous Labour government. This was nonsense, of course. Labour had run relatively small deficits, has reduced government spending as a share of GDP and debt was low until the global banking crash.” “And the Conservatives would have done exactly the same as Labour in bailing out the City of London with more borrowing. The Conservatives are obsessed with the government deficit and debt – getting them down has been their measure of ‘prosperity’. But even on this measure, they have failed. Osborne made much of the reduction in the deficit ‘by half’ by April 2015. But back in 2010, he forecast that he would balance the budget by April 2016. He has now announced that this target will not be achieved until April 2019.” With an estimated figure of about 40% of cuts seen so far we are still yet to feel the worst of austerity to be honest. Huge chunks of the public sector could be privatised parts of local government could cease to function as they should and a hell of a lot more out sourcing is on its way to a country which already leads the way in out sourcing. The coalitions plan of eliminating the deficit by 2015 looks incredibly woeful now going into the next 5 years we can expect a very bumpy ride if any plan to eliminate any deficit is to be achieved “And to meet this target, even assuming that Britain continues to grow at 2-3% over the next four years, the government will have to impose a massive round of public spending cuts on welfare benefits and services. It will also have to raise taxes, although it claims that it can cut income tax again during the life of the next government (although that promise is pushed back to 2019). And the deficit is one thing. Government debt is still rising in real terms. Debt is over £160 billion more than forecast back in 2010 and is now well over 90% of GDP on a gross basis and is not expected to peak on the best forecasts until 2019. The government has failed because the UK economy has not grown in income anywhere near as much as the government forecast back 2010. Osborne forecast real GDP growth would average about 2.7% a year; instead it has averaged up to this year only 1.3%, half the rate. At the same time, although unemployment has come down, most of the new jobs have been part-time, low-paid and self employment ( This has meant that real incomes (i.e. after inflation) have fallen by the largest amount since the Great Depression of the 1930s.” We have to be clear young people who have been hit the hardest in real terms by austerity and have seen their pay fall the furthest have very little cause for optimism I’d suggest their future looks very bleak indeed. With little in the way of meaningful jobs and even more so of those which pay a decent wage to the fact many will never see a pension or even afford to buy their own home let alone affording a rent the future for young people growing up today is a very dark one indeed. “The government stood back from imposing too severe a reduction in the budget deficit after 2012, for fear that the economy would drop back into a new slump – and it nearly did. But that just means, in its obsession with the deficit, that if the Conservatives win the election in May, they will launch a new round of austerity measures. Maybe a new round of austerity won’t happen because the Conservatives won’t win next May. But all three major parties are committed to more spending cuts in bowing to the God of ‘fiscal probity’. “All parties support balancing the current budget in the next Parliament. Deficit spending is clearly still deemed to be politically untenable in the UK.” Gavin Davies, FT. Compared to the Chancellor’s plan, Labour would permit extra borrowing to finance investment (1.5% of GDP) and would allow them longer to attain balance for the current budget. But they would still impose austerity to the tune of half the amount of the conservatives. Behind the obsession with deficits and debt lies the real agenda. It is two-fold: to reduce the size of the public sector and destroy any vestiges of the ‘welfare state’, opening up public goods and services to deliver profits to the capitalist sector. The other aim is lower the burden of tax on and increase the subsidies to the capitalist sector over the long term to boost profitability. This hidden agenda is sometimes exposed. Only this week, a Conservative MP called for huge cuts. “The Chancellor could make a £20 billion start by culling Whitehall’s sprawling bureaucracy, enforcing public sector pay settlements, freezing benefits, reducing the welfare cap, scaling back middle-class welfare and looking again at the state pension.” Dominic Raab, Conservative MP for Esher and Walton. Note the attack on the state pension. This has been sacrosanct up to now. But the Conservatives are now preparing to dismantle it, using the argument that the young should not have to pay for the old and that’s unfair. The right-wing Economist magazine took up this call: “Britain’s fiscal problems are partly the result of over-generous spending on the old. They should pay off some of the debts instead of passing them all on to the young.” But apparently it is not unfair for the poor to pay for the rich. In the UK the bottom 10% of income earners pay more in all taxes as a percentage of their income than the top 10%. The government could switch its priorities on spending from defence, subsidies to industry, lowering corporation tax, more tax cuts for the rich to boosting public investment, services and welfare. Despite its headline noise on a few infrastructure projects (rail, flood protection etc), it is doing no such thing. Faster growth would soon deal with any deficit anyway. In terms of real annual GDP growth, the OBR estimates that a 0.1% point increase would do as much over the four years from 2015-16 for the deficit as roughly £3 billion of spending cuts. The trouble is that the UK economy may be growing at 3% a year currently, but nobody expects that to last. The Office for Budget Responsibility has actually revised down its forecasts for growth after this year for every year up to 2019. Even Osborne admitted that the "warning lights" are flashing over the health of the global economy, and Britain "cannot be immune". Yes, any new downturn in the world economy would soon push the UK economy back into recession too. Osborne raises only that risk to a booming UK economy (the fastest in the G7 this year). But there are serious domestic risks too. Most of the contribution to the ‘boom’ of 2014 is coming from the unproductive sectors of the economy (housing – prices rising at 12% a year; and financial services as the City of London ploughs on). Manufacturing output is still struggling and despite a huge devaluation of the pound back in 2010, UK exports have failed to get anywhere near the government’s expectations.” “That’s mainly because the business sector is unwilling to invest in new technology or skilled labour at good rates of pay. Investment to GDP in most major capitalist economies has been falling. But it is particularly low in the UK. And that is because profitability in the corporate sector, although improving a little after all the austerity measures so far, is still below levels seen in the late 1990s or even 2005. After six years, the UK economy has only just got back to where it was before the Great Recession.” It’s certainly going to get a lot lot worse before we even see a glimmer of improvement for most people. With thanks to the excellent Michael Roberts for quotes and extract, you can read his full post and blog over at http://www.applevis.com/forum

Could Boris Johnson be PM one day??

Could Boris Johnson be PM one day?? A terrifying thought no doubt too many of you but today I believe Boris Johnson took his first steps towards this ambition of his. Today Boris announced that he will look to find a seat to stand in for the 2015 general election currently scheduled for next year. This follows years of speculation of if he’d return to Westminster or not. So now we know he will do will just becoming a MP be enough? I suspect not. For a long time now Boris has had this oar around him which has protected him from the criticism levelled at any other Tory. He is just like David Cameron a former Etonian and was good friends with David Cameron during their public schooling days. But would Boris throw all that friendship away to become Tory party leader with a chance of prime minister? I think he would. I think he is a very driven man with lots of ambition and charisma. Let me be honest and lay my cards on the table I hate the Tories and all that they stand for. I cannot stand this current ConDem coalition government and want rid of them ASAP. But I also take an interest in politics in general and have always done so as this blog can testify. But as a bit of a passing interest I do look at what is going on on the other side such as the Tories and the ruling class. As I do feel you got to know your enemy to know how they work as to develop an idea how to defeat them once and for all. So could Boris one day be tory party leader and PM? Why not we do live in exceptional times and despite all the cuts he has pushed through in London he has still managed to regain power and was re elected in 2012 all be it on a reduced majority. He has something which most if not all current tories do not that ability to win when your party brand is toxic and even hindering you. Boris can get away with lots I believe and am a dangerous individual for the working class as a result. Due to his ability to come across as a bafoon to be frank a bit of a clown and is a little entertaining people who would ordinarily be turned off by the views he claims to stand by. But being Boris he can carry it off. I would compare this to the Nigel farage factor that has very little in the way of principles and beliefs but gets away with so much due to being very media savvy and a projecting himself as a guy you could have a reasonable conversation with in your local pub. Of course both Nigel’s and Bore’s politics are not to be supported many that are maybe not tuned in to politics can be won over to their popularism. For Boris this will become increasingly difficult if he is to fulfil his ambition of becoming PM as he will have to agree with things he may have already opposed before as London Mayor. For example if he does which is expected to stand for the Uxbrige and South Rieslip seat which is up for grabs next year he will have to balance his views of opposing a Heathrow expansion with a mixed feeling in the area who more of less are pro expansion due to the fact it provides jobs and a lifeline for the area. Before as London Mayor he was standing for all Londoners if Boris goes for this seat he will have a smaller area of people to stand up for meaning his previous policies may clash with others in this seat. So Boris Johnson will be an interesting figure to watch in the coming years. But most of all we must learn how to expose him far better. Just being a clown may show most people are politically apathetic understandably but we do need to fully explain to people the role of these dangerous people with dangerous ideas which affect us very much in a real way. Boris could become PM one day and this scares me greatly while his image of a funny guy and a likeable chap seems ok now just think what he could do with powers to destroy the NHS and our public services all because we took our eye off the ball thinking he is just a funny guy and we will vote for him because we like his personality. How this will fit with old school conservatives who believed in the traditions of the family and the old days. Boris who has a love child and various mistresses doesn’t really fit in to the old view of the conservative many of their activist base do. But maybe they will look past all that as its Boris who can win for them during troubled times. I am no fan of personality politics but you can’t help commenting on it and recent developments under line that sadly. Let’s do away with personality politics once and for all I say.

Labours drop in the poles; will they still win next year?

It was not only predictable but predicted – by many, on all manner of social media - which this government would start to rebuild its base and Labour's fragile poll lead would collapse, in the year before the general election. This is now happening. Labour's support has fallen six percentage points, and the Tories have a lead for the first time in ages. Why? Hasn't the Labour Party issued a number of popular statements, from fuel freezes to rent controls? Isn't this government implementing profoundly unpopular policies such as the de facto privatisation of the NHS? Isn't austerity - or at least this government's version of it - unpopular with most voters? And if Ed Miliband is uninspiring, wasn't he just as uninspiring when he had a seemingly commanding poll lead? The fact that labour is sleep walking into a defeat in the next general election in 2015 is interesting on many levels. Of course they can still win and nothing has been decided yet of course it would mean the Tories would need to go into next years election with a 7 point lead to achieve a majority. Labours opposition to the government has been woeful more often than not agreeing to the same policies but all is it doing it slightly differently such as the benefit cap which will cause many to suffer in the coming years. I think a lot of Labours drop in the polls and failure to really get a big lead over the Tories is down to several things but not least the fact many just don’t connect with Ed Miliband. Many I speak to find him weird and a little geeky and this doesn’t reflect well with people even if what he is saying some agree with such as price freezes to energy bills. The unions resistance has been pitiful not merely because of bad leadership, and not merely because they have been narrow and sectional in approach, more interested in limiting the immediate damage and preserving the bargaining mechanisms that limited their militancy in exchange for some influence than in leading a broad offensive against austerity. As important has been the politics of the union base, the grassroots. It's not just that there is no 'rank and file' to speak of, no movement 'from below' capable of driving the unions into confrontation with the government. It's not just that unions are more bureaucratised, more dependent on their leaderships than ever for initiative in such matters as industrial action and political campaigns. It is that the space for organised radical politics has declined in the union movement in proportion as it has elsewhere. The extra-Labour left has been nowhere, in total disarray, unsure of its strategy, unable to cohere its diverse strands much less pull together the scattered elements of resistance, unable to consistently mobilise opponents in numbers, and unable to actually disrupt very much (indeed, there are some on the Left for whom disruption is entirely beside the point). In the long, long diminuendo of organised left politics in the UK, the biggest organised left was the tiny far left which, even if it weren't for - you know - everything, was totally unequal to the historical responsibility placed upon it. The five years or so of crisis and austerity have transformed a sectarian left, with each grouplet placing its organisational interests before all else, into a fractal left, characterised by splits within splits, loudly achieving nothing. You know perfectly well why. The break up of the SWP obviously creates a space in which healthy elements can converge and rebuild. The flourishing of individual activists, of critical thinking, of strategic thinking, is real. However, it also liberates - without pointing any fingers - a horde of tinpot generals, smarmy amoral 'operators', cranks, blank-eyed dogmatists who may as well be in the Church of Scientology, vicious self-pitying moralists, bullies and sycophants, and parasites that feast on the decomposing flesh of larger organisms. We have not discussed UKIP here but I do think their influence on next years election where they may be coming off the back of a European elections win and with Nigel Farrage as popular in the media as ever their pull on votes between labour and Tory could play out very interestingly as no doubt UKIP take votes from the Tories but there is also evidence to suggest they are now picking up support from even traditional labour supporters quite worryingly I’d suggest. Labour as it stands does not inspire much hope let alone any change in direction. Its timid policies of interfering in the markets o bring about a more responsible capitalism if such a thing truely exists just do not seem to be capturing many peoples imagination and least not me. With less than a year till the next election in 2015 we will see a very interesting year in politics and I imagine the closer the election next year is looking likely to be the dirtier the tactics from both sides will become. So if you’re asking me who will win next year? I still would say the most likely outcome at this stage is another hung parliament with a possible coalition of either labour and lib dems or Tories and lib dems as we were before and after all the attacks that we have seen on our living standards the thought that the Tories could end up back in power is a disgrace to anyone calling themselves a opposition.

Can labour win in 2015?

It would appear they can but increasingly they look like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Labours poll lead has plummeted since the start of the year and they are not helping themselves anymore. It seems incredible that the Tories could get back in but at this stage there is every chance all be it maybe with a Lib Dem hand me up. Ed Miliband is being targeted with questions and many are questioning if he is up to the job but they all miss the point. Labour is a party which is now wedded to capitalism and as such the austerity consensus which has seen them agree the need to keep all the Tory cuts if elected which is by no means certain anyway. With the Tories ramming through austerity, privatisation and a fall in living standards not seen in a generation opposing this doesn’t sound that hard but this also misses the point the thing is labour do not oppose the cuts or privatisation they started and laid the ground for much of what we see today. So how can they oppose things which they themselves would be doing anyway? We have a sense of what labour would be like in government if they are elected with their record in government accepting and passing on the Tory cuts passed on to them all be it with crocodile tears which is no consolation to those on the sharp end of cuts to their jobs and services. Clearly Labour is no longer a worker’s party in any sense those like Owen Jones who like to cling onto the desperate hope of a reclaimed labour headed by himself no doubt must be wondering where they go next now. Yes labour has a trade union link but shouting this as a reason to remain backing it is frankly laughable. With the timid response quite frankly by the unions labour and the union leaders will be selling you austerity in 2015 at the next election. You vote Tory you get cuts, you vote lib dems you get cuts and now with labour you get cuts too. How the trade unions continue to fund this sham of a party I’ll never know. Actually I do its easier for them to bemoan the cuts and how awful they are but actually standing up and opposing them is a lot more effort and all seems like hard work. Ed Miliband and his labour party are often referred to as on the left I’m not so sure. We do have to separate out the labour party and the left they are two very different groups and neither share each other’s values any longer. Labour claims to be a centre left party whilst upholding anti immigrant, pro war anti worker and pro privatisation ideas this in my book is not on the left at all and the unions and their members need to kick them into the long grass. Let’s let the party die and hopefully then workers will see that we need a new way of doing things with people putting themselves forwards as candidates much like with TUSC simply opposing all cuts as a starting point. A line in the sand is needed no more funds to labour from the unions, no more cuts to be accepted by the unions. Unions should be run and controlled democratically by their members if not those leaders need to go. Labour can win in 2015 but it will be despite itself not because of what it is. I still think the most likely outcome will be another hung parliament with the lib dems again joining the bigger party to form a coalition of cuts again will it be labour ? Possibly. What is clear though is whoever gets in in 2015 will carry on with the same policies and same pro capitalist ideas. We need a new party to represent the voiceless. The further alienation of people from the political plain can lead to all different reactions some more ugly than others. A political voice is key for those who wish to oppose austerity and change society for the better. That for me would be a new mass workers party with its aim socialism and no concessions to capitalism.

big gains for the left in Irish general election

The election results are coming in thick and fast now from the Irish Republic after their huge EU bail out and the greens pulling out of a battered government forced a general election. Below i've found some election results and some analysis from the source i found this from. I feel personally this is excellent news and the working class of Ireland have voted back against the big parties by presenting 5 radical left MP's this is excellent news as it will give working people a real say in waht happens now.

Voters have given the main Irish bosses' party a drubbing in the country’s general election. And the radical left has made a breakthrough, getting at least three TDs elected, with more results to come.

The biggest shift is the slump in support for the Fianna Fáil. Its share of the vote fell to less than 15 percent nationally – compared to 42 percent in the 2007 election.

This is the worst ever defeat for the party that has dominated Irish politics since independence from Britain in 1921 and that has been in power since 1997.

Fianna Fáil’s support in Dublin stood at less than 8 percent. They went from 13 to 1 TD in the capital. This is from a party that historically had 100,000 members when the country’s population was 3.5 million. It previously would have expected to get 40 percent of working class votes. Political dynasties that have controlled constituencies for decades are gone and places that have returned Fianna Fáil TDs (MPs) since the 1920s are now looking elsewhere.

The Irish Green Party, which had slavishly propped up the Fianna Fáil government in coalition, was decimated at the polls and now has no member in parliament.

The Irish Labour Party vote rose massively. But its determined lack of radicalism means that it will not look to use that vote to campaign against austerity. Instead, it is likely to go into coalition with the bosses’ second preference party Fine Gael. Sinn Fein gained and looked set to be the biggest opposition party after getting around 18 percent of the vote.

The radical left made a significant breakthrough with the candidates who are part of the United Left Alliance.

Newly elected TDs in the Alliance include Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party, Clare Daly of the Socialist Party, and Seamus Healy of the Tipperary Unemployed and Works Action Group.

Richard Boyd Barrett for the People before Profit Alliance and Joan Collins of the People before Profit Alliance could both be elected, as the counting continues. Other members of the United Left Alliance polled strongly but are unlikely to win a seat.

The vote was so close in Richard Boyd Barrett’s Dún Laoghaire constituency that a recount has been called for tomorrow.

The last government launched a brutal assault on working class living standards after becoming mired in corruption scandals involving bankers and property developers.

A £73 billion bank bailout by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund meant hammering the poor and the vulnerable.

The ability of the union leadership to keep a lid on struggle against austerity has meant the crisis has been predominantly a crisis of parliamentary politics. Fine Gael are not associated with the corrupt pro-banker and pro-developer excesses of Fianna Fáil and have gained at the ballot box.

But both Labour and Fine Gael backed the IMF bailout of the banks. The next few months will see them implement the same austerity that led to the collapse of Fianna Fáil.