"Osborne's 'no budge' budget" - A Titanic "full speed ahead" to the Iceberg

Below is Unison's response to today's awful, bodged and Titanic "full steam ahead to the iceberg" budget.

I wonder how many folk recognise the picture of the actor and remember or realise its significance? 

Not a lot according to last years General Election results. 

Why is it each generation eventually forgets not just how horrible the Tories are but that they are economic illiterates who think that mass unemployment is "a price worth paying".

" Osborne’s ‘no budge budget’ is a missed opportunity to right Tory economic wrongs, UNISON, the UK’s largest union, said today. By passing up the chance to scale back the savage public spending cuts, the Tories are condemning the economy to long-term low growth and high unemployment.

The union said that the Tory’s half-hearted attempts to tackle rising inequalities through a Learjet levy and action on tax loopholes, were token gestures, which would not restore fairness - spiralling out of control under the Tories.

UNISON General Secretary, Dave Prentis, said:

“Under the Tories our economy isn’t growing, but the dole queues are. The Government’s own Office of Budget Responsibility has downgraded the growth forecast by 0.9% since the Chancellor’s last budget. The carnage going on in the public sector was completely written out of the Chancellor’s budget.

“Osborne should have used this budget to right his economic wrongs. This no budge budget flies in the face of mounting evidence of the toll Tory cuts are taking on our economy and our society. The Chancellor is pinning his hopes on the private sector driving the recovery – but the evidence shows the private sector is not creating enough jobs to stop total unemployment from rising.

“Struggling families will be pleased that tax receipts have been used to stop fuel price rises. But with dole queues rising, and business and consumer confidence low, this is a warning to Osborne – he will not be able to rely on tax receipts to top up spending much longer.

“Osborne's over-hyped increase in tax allowances will in fact be worth less than £2.50 a week to the average basic rate taxpayer. This is more than cancelled out by the increase in VAT, which will cost the average family more than £3 a week, and other reductions in benefits, tax credits and services, which will cost families even more.

“This small tax giveaway will do nothing to help the 2.53 million people on the dole and struggling to find work. It is a drop in the ocean for millions of public sector workers hit by pay freezes. With inflation up to 5.5%, any benefit will swiftly be wiped out by higher prices.

“The Learjet levy is a token gesture. The mega-rich who can afford a private plane could pay a lot more towards our recovery. Instead, public sector workers are cutting back on food, vital healthcare such as dentists and prescriptions, and are still racking up high levels of personal debt. The poor, sick and vulnerable who did not gamble away our future are paying the price, as the public services they rely on disappear.”

On top of the VAT rise and cuts to tax credits, benefits and services that are hitting all workers, public sector workers are being hit by an increase in their pension contributions that will take more than £10 a week out of their disposable income, and a pay freeze that, with inflation running at 5.5%, will have the effect of reducing their real living standards by the equivalent of another £20 a week.

The union is calling for a change of direction and a budget for growth including a Robin Hood Tax. This tax on the banks would add £20 billion to the public purse – twenty times the measures the Chancellor announced today to close tax loopholes. Twenty billion would save local services from shut down, keep children’s nurseries open, stop hospital’s shedding jobs and save adult day centres from closure.

There is another way

- Andrew Lansley’s £3 billion* top-down reorganisation of the NHS could fund 600,000 hip operations, or fund full home care packages for 150,000 elderly or vulnerable people.

- Francis Maude’s “mutuals taskforce” has a £10 million price tag – these funds could keep more than 200 social, youth and community workers in their jobs for a year.

- And Gove’s Academies and Free Schools programme has £410 million of funding – which could restart around 20 of the vital school rebuilding projects he cancelled last year, giving disadvantaged children better schools, and creating valuable construction jobs.
(picture is from "Boys from the black stuff")

Shotton Steel Works 1980: Teesside Cast Products 2010

The BBC headline is “1,700 jobs to go as Corus mothballs plant...Steelmaker Corus has confirmed it will curtail production at its Teesside Cast Products factory, putting 1,700 people out of work”.

Although there has been many thousands of job losses already announced in the last year or so and I am currently trying to argue against possible redundancies at my own employer, the prospect of a whole steel factory closing down immediately brings back very dark memories from my childhood.

In March 1980 I was 17 and I remember the devastation of my local community when the local steel works at Shotton was closed down with 6,500 jobs lost. The North-East Wales local economy was sent reeling. The misery was not helped by the closure of textile mills and the early 1980’s recession. At one point there was 33% local male unemployment. My parents were not employed at Shotton but most of my friends had one or more of their parents or older siblings working there. It was a desperate time for individual families and for the region. It took a long time to recover. These are the things that I remember the most from that really horrible time:-

While it would be somewhat unfair to say that that nothing was done by the Tories at the time to tackle mass unemployment but it was very little and totally inadequate. There was also no confidence or belief that the state could make a difference. Good people were simply left to rot on the dole. The Tories then (and now) fundamentally do not believe in interfering in the market. They thought (by and large) that mass unemployment was just a price worth paying and its real solution was pay cuts and job insecurity.

I joined the Labour Party in 1978 and I can remember clearly members arguing that it would not matter if the Labour government lost the next General Election – if fact it would do the Party "good" to have 4 or 5 years of opposition to revitalise itself. Even at the time I thought this attitude was rather weird?

It was self evidently not worth me leaving school to try find an apprenticeship (the only realistic expectation for male working class kids at the time) so I took the easier option to stay at school and take my A levels and then apply to university. The first member ever of my family to do so.

I hope and pray (agnostically of course) that the Steel unions and the local Teesside community can defeat this plan to mothball the plant. But if this does happen then let us hope that a Labour government is re-elected next year and not “do nothing” Tories who will ideologically condemn those unemployed steel workers to become a future lost generation. Not that this lets the current Labour government off the hook since many people will compare rightly or wrongly how it deals with this crisis with the massive intervention to save the banks.

Finally I looked at the "comments" on this local North East Wales BBC website about the Shotton closure and two things strike me. Firstly how many of the commentators have emigrated aboard since the plant closed and secondly the often heart breaking requests for further information from family members about how their fathers or husbands had been killed while at work.

(Picture of work at Shotton, mass meetings and going to lobby Parliament over closure. Many thanks to Col. Roi )

Oh Mr Porter, what shall I do?

“WIPE OUT”; “Tories Hammer New Labour”; “Gordon is a moron” as well as being given a “bloody nose” and a “severe kicking” - these are some of the headlines following the Conservative victory in Crewe and (traditional Tory) Nantwich. Some humility in defeat should now be expected. But while we have lost this particular battle and admittedly the local council/ Assembly elections, it doesn’t mean that we will lose the war. However, what to do about all this?

The electorate is clearly very volatile. It was after all not that long ago that I posted “Success in Ealing & Sedgefield”. I don’t believe that the political make up of the nation has changed radically right wing in such a short period. What I do believe is that it is more to do with the Clinton argument that “it’s the economy, stupid”. I’ve just received notification that my monthly direct debit for gas and electricity has gone up by £20, I never used to think twice about the cost of filling up with diesel, now I watch with horrified fascination how the £’s symbols on the fuel pumps spin faster than the litres. Bread and milk does cost more and the local off-licence has now finally increased the cost of 6 cans of 5% lager from £5 to £5.50.

If you had a slight panic earlier this year about the safety of your salary or savings if your bank went bust and now also believe (wrongly in the vast majority of cases) that you are paying more income tax this year, then you can see some powerful reasons why people deserted Labour for bright shiny New Tories.

While I think we need more policies like “fairness for agency workers” that will attract and mobilise our core vote, I don’t think that there is any evidence that moving significantly to “the Left” is the answer. Not least, because it is the centre that decides elections and power in this country. It just doesn’t make any sense to say that people vote Tory because Labour isn’t lefty enough. Others may point to 1945 and 1979 as examples of where Political Parties adopted radical politics and won elections. In 1945 following 6 years of collectivisation and total war, a free health service, secondary education and nationalisation was “centre” politics. While Thatcher in the 1979 election did not portray herself, in any way, as any sort of radical conservative.

It is the economy that will save us or bury us. This means there is room for optimism despite the gloom. There are two schools of thought: one, either the economic fundamentals are in good shape, the economy will survive the downturn and the commodity/energy price hike is a speculative bubble and will soon collapse. Or two, we will move into recession.

Talking of 1979, on Thursday evening I went to a “meeting” and bought a badge for 50p from a dear comrade. The badge logo said “Don’t blame me I Voted Labour”. I remember going to a TUC unemployment march organised in Liverpool in 1980 helping to carry a banner saying the same thing. At the time male unemployment levels in my part of Wales was about 30%. I was actually too young to have voted in the election, but never mind. One of the things I do remember is how confident many of my fellow marchers were that Thatcher was only going to be a one hit wonder and obviously Labour would get in next time. Some prediction that one turned out to be...

The “New Labour Coalition” may well be faltering, battered and bruised but it is not dead. There is still everything to play for. Surely for no other reason, than the price of failure is just too much to bear.

(Poster of famous musical hall star Marie Lloyd singing “Oh Mr Porter” – click on link and you can hear a version of the song!)