There was no better metaphor to represent the popular loathing of this Tory government than to see Rishi Sunak announcing the general election in a downpour of rain. It would have been even better, as some very skilful and imaginative graphic artist posted on social media, if the Prime Minister had been standing ankle-deep in raw sewage.
It is with a huge sigh of relief that millions of workers will feel they now have a chance of getting rid of the most rotten, corrupt and incompentent government in modern times. By almost any indicator of well-being, the vast majority of people are worse off than they were fourteen years ago.
Real wages are around the same as they were in 2010, but still lower than before the Covid pandemic. Public services are on their knees, especially local government, with several authorities declared bankrupt and others set to follow, and the NHS. Waiting lists for NHS operations and procedures have almost trebled.
The number of food banks have soared, as have child poverty and homelessness. Buying or renting a home is becoming impossible for young couples. Even highly skilled workers, like teachers, junior doctors and nurses are struggling to make ends meet.
Public utilities are a national disgrace
The public utilities privatised by the Thatcher/Major governments are a national disgrace, pumping billions of pounds into shareholders’ pockets, while gouging prices to record levels. Water companied dump millions of tons of raw sewage, so that officially there is not a single river in England deemed to be ‘clean’, while their shareholders laugh all the way to the bank.
The UK has the most expensive railway system, mile for mile, than in any other country in Western Europe. And so it goes on. Little wonder that there is wide public support for the renationalisation of all of these public utilities.
In the fourteen years of Tory rule, the government have rolled back democratic rights. The basic right to strike and demonstrate on streets have been curtailed and police powers extended. The Tories have embarked on a blatant policy of vote suppression with ID requirements different for young people and students, as compared to pensioners. On every important social issue like race, gender, women’s and trans rights, the Tories have shown themselves in hock to the most reactionary leader-writers of the tabloid rags.
And how can voters forget the partying at Number 10 Downing Street, when everyone else was locked down during Covid? Or the succession of huge public scandals: the Post Office, Windrush, infected blood, where compensation for the thousands affected has been long promised, but, like the proverbial can, has been endlessly kicked down the road by this government.
All aspects of life are worse than before
Prisons are 99% full, and it has been reported that trials have been postponed because there are no more places so send offenders, and the police have even been advised to make fewer arrests. In short, there is no aspect of day-to-day life that is not worse than it was in 2010.
Some months ago, a Tory MP was actually asked on TV if he could name one thing that had improved in the last fourteen years of his government. He was clearly completely flummoxed, where an honest answer might have been “nothing”. It is for these reasons that it is likely – with the average poll putting them 21 points ahead – that Labour will win the coming election. But then what?
The Tories, although allegedly framing the election around the economy, in fact have little to say on it. It is far more likely that they will follow the usual pattern of using the race card, with issues around ‘small boats’, so-called ‘illegal’ migrants and culture wars, although polls have shown that people are just not interested in these issues as much as bread and butter concerns like wages, prices and the NHS.
On the very afternoon the election was called, Keir Starmer emailed Labour members. “Change” he wrote, “That is what this general election is about”. Change is indeed what would be universally welcomed. But there is widespread scepticism as to whether this Labour leader can deliver it in any meaningful way. As the chief executive of polling organisaiton, Ipsos, told the Guardian: “Starmer’s personal ratings are the lowest Ipsos has ever seen for an opposition leader who is so far ahead in the overall voting intention...”
Nevertheless, it is despite Starmer, that Labour will carry the aspirations of millions of workers, because it is seen as the old viable alternative government, and there will be a huge weight of expectation riding on it.
Left Horizons does not take its cue from the ultra-left social media bubble, which is really an echo-chamber whose denizens talk only to themselves. It takes its cue from the needs of the working class who will be voting Labour in their millions. The polls may narrow in the six weeks before the election takes place, but is possible that Labour will win by a landslide and the Tories may get their lowest percentage vote for over a century. So much the better.
Millions will be expecting real change
If and when Labour is elected, we will support any reform that is introduced, however modest, that will benefit working class people. However, in our opinion, British capitalism, the weakest of all of the major capitalist economies, is in such a parlous state that it cannot afford real and lasting reforms.
If the Labour leadership base their economic policies on the maintenance of this so-called ‘market’ system – no matter how much it is dressed up as ‘repairing the damage done by the Tories’ – it will inevitably be forced along the road of counter-reforms. Even the best of intentions would be forced to give way to a ‘Labour’ version of austerity.
The Starmer/Reeves election campaign will be based entirely around the idea that the Labour leadership have a “plan” to put matters right, vague and undefined, though it might be. For millions of voters, uninvolved in political parties or activities, this will be enough to boot the Tories out.
But if there are millions who believe that Labour will bring about real “change” on the basis of the economic outlook of Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer – that is, by maintaining and simply ‘repairing’ the system – then they are suffering under an illusion. And if that illusion is to be dispelled, there needs be no alibi or excuses. The greater the majority Starmer has, the greater will be the weight of expectation on him, and the weaker will be his excuses for not carrying out changes that improve workers’ lives.
Left Horizons, therefore, supports the election of a Labour government, moreover, one with the largest majority possible. This is not because we have illusions in the outlook of the Labour leadership, but because that outlook can only be challenged in the eyes of the mass of workers by its application in practice.
It may only be a first step, but the election of a Labour government is a step towards the re-awakening of real socialist ideas inside the Labour Party once again and for us, that cannot come soon enough.
[Top picture taken from social media, author unknown]
