An Expected Betrayal

Apparently, on election night Jenny Willott, getting her words mixed, hit the nail on the head. "Tonight," she declared, "we witness a triumph of politics over democracy."

Never has a truer word been spoken. Cameron, the leader of a party that a majority of people voted against, has been made prime minister with the help of Nick Clegg, leading a party that even more people voted against, by the assent of a monarch that nobody voted for.

The Liberal Democrat MPs who couldn't resist joining the tories in government have shattered any illusions their supporters have had in them that they offer an alternative to the main parties and the big business interests that they represent. They did it for the country, they said - for stability and the national interest, so that massive cuts to public services and jobs could be made and the markets reassured. If this was the issue which had such veto-power over all others why not just urge their supporters to vote Tory in the first place?

The yellow ministers have won nothing but an increase in their salaries. Liberal Democrats will be whipped to abstain in votes even on those issues they made manifesto commitments, giving the Tories a majority they did not win at the ballot box. Already, Chris Huhne, Lib DEM MP and energy sec, has admitted that new nuclear power stations could be constructed.

And only is electoral reform of any kind in all likelihood off the agenda (because the Tories' massive campaign chest will be used in a referendum to finance opposition) but the legislation the Libservative government is proposing will technically rule out a vote of no confidence in the government within a five year term. This paper commitment, however, will not live up to the stress and strain of reality - in seeking to make the government stronger they've only made it rigid, and more brittle, and the movement that will develop to fight the cuts in the period ahead will smash it to pieces.

As the Independent joked, Clegg and Cameron are married, "till debt us do part."

Too busy to post

Socialists are used to working hard to build support for their ideas but the past week has taken things to a new level.

I was up at 4am yesterday to help leaflet the postal workers at the sorting office in Cardiff. We got good support and no wonder: postal workers were facing a vicious assault on the right of their union, the CWU, even to be involved in negoiation! They've won some concessions but management are still out to drive down wages and conditions as low as they can. They just don't get it that the best way to make the postal service more efficient is to kick the profiteering private companies out of the industry, renationalise the sector and run things democratically with the workforce represented in management.

Next we leafletted two of the big council workplaces in Cardiff. Already 350 jobs have been cut and another 650 are predicted to go - 10% of the workforce, leaving those left behind with higher workloads and those who've left with the unappetising prospect of finding another job in the context of the largest number of people not in work since records began.

Then on to the Cardiff University Student Union hustings, where socialist policies beat the policies of job cuts, public service cuts and privatisation pushed by the main parties hands down. I put sitting Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Willott on the spot, asking why is it that her party couldn't find the £3.5 billion needed to abolish tuition fees but supported handing the banks back to the profiteers in the private sector once they've become profitable again. Liberal Democrat leaders ditched their pledge to abolish fees and then backtracked when they realised this would look unpopular. The new line is that they would abolish fees in 6 years, but there's another election between now and then, and there could well be another recession! We can't afford to abolish fees now, claim the Lib Dems, but young people can't afford to wait until it's acceptable to the big business interests the main parties serve - we need an end to fees now! coincidentally, fees could be abolished if the war in Iraq and Afghanistan - costly in lives and money - were ended today. But the Lib Dems don't support bringing the troops home today either...

Sir Peter Gershon, the Butcher of the Public Sector, has been taken on by the Tories and is calling for £12billion more cuts and another 40,000 job losses in the public sector. Cameron's also calling for a pay cut for public sector workers and higher tuition fees and also for a longer working life.

In other words, the tories will try and make working class people pay for the recession with unemployment, lower wages, cuts to public services, a higher retirement age and by reversing the access to higher education they gained in the past.

Even this, however, doesn't mount up to their full programme of cutbacks. Labour has said that there is a £22bn whole in the Tories' plan and the Tories haven't denied it! They've countered by saying there's a massive hole in Labour's plans too. Both are right, because both Labour and Tories (and Lib Dems, who have refused to rule out cutbacks in the NHS after the election).

But - as a start - why not spend the £4.5bn a year spent on Afghanisan and Iraq by Britain and the £76bn pledged to renew Trident on public services instead? Why not stop private companies from squeezing profits out of cash-strapped public services? These are the real "efficiency savings" that need to be made, but it's only Socialists who are willing to make them.

Support Union Members' Democratic Right to Take Action to Defend Jobs

Socialist Party members who support TUSC were campaigning today in Clifton Street and Albany Road to scrap the anti trade union laws after another disgraceful decision banning workers from exercising their right to take industrial action. With no political party representing us, trade unions are the only thing standing between those who depend on public services and the main parties who plan to go further even than Thatcher did in slashing them to ribbons.

Hot on the heels of the second BA strike, postponed from its original date on the whim of a millionaire judge, RMT signallers and maintenance workers were due to take action next week to fight against their employers' plan to cut jobs. Network Rail wants to axe 1500 maintenance workers and are ripping up agreements with signal workers as a step towards cutting their jobs and worsening their working conditions. The result could easily be another Paddington, Hatfield or Potters' Bar.

But the courts have stepped in again. Unions are bound by so many requirements that defending services and jobs by taking industrial action legally is becoming impossible.



This year is the thirtieth anniversary of the first of Thatcher's anti-trade union laws and the fact that almost half that period has been spent under a Labour government demonstrates the character of that party today and the urgent need for a "Taff Vale Two" - a move by the trade unions to help found a party that represents ordinary working class people and trade unionists.

Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat Assembly Members demonstrated the contempt their party has for trade unions by making a point of crossing PCS picketlines at the National Assembly. Centreforum, A Liberal Democrat think-tank, has effectively called for the expulsion of trade unions from national negotiations over pay, earning the condemnation of Unison, my trade union. And Plaid Cymru members in Caerphilly have embarrassed leaders of their party by withdrawing facilities for trade union reps in the Council in order to try and weaken their campaign against cutbacks.

It's often said that the trade union movement, without a political voice, is fighting with one hand tied behind its back. But, unless it bursts out of the legal constraints binding it today, it will face its toughest fight in living memory with both hands bound.

Photos from the PCS rally at Assembly today

Video from PCS rally at Cardiff Bay today.

Over 250 PCS members from across Wales protest outside the Senedd at government plans to scrap the Civil Service Compensation Scheme.

Victory to striking PCS members

Pickets outside PCS workplaces in Cardiff today were in relatively high spirits despite the Welsh weather. The strike was supported solidly at every picketline I visited.

Elaine, a rep at Charles St explained that "The press always talks about civil servants as if we all wear suits and are highly paid but we're not. Most are on low pay and some only get barely above the minimum wage." There's a general understanding that the government's looking to cut the compensation scheme as a first step towards making massive job cuts on the cheap after the election. That's why workers of all ages have supported the strike. Youth Fight for Jobs has also sent a message of support to members taking action.

The public understand, as well, that you can't cut jobs without cutting services and with the likelihood of another dip into recession and more job losses on the way, working class people need to defend their rights to unemployment benefit and the services which provide it. Pickets had a good response from passers-by wishing them good luck.

RMT signallers and maintenance workers have also voted to take industrial action over the ripping up of agreements. There's a stark contrast between the apparent fragility of agreements between government and other employers and the workforce and the apparently invulnerable contracts enjoyed by the bankers. If we had politicians offering their services to us instead of to big business has perhaps we'd be able to win the same.