Roadblocks cripple West Bank economyElectronic Intifada - 23 Jul 2008rr r r rr r rr r rr r rr r rr rrr rHEBRON (IPS) – The Israeli military has erected three additional roadblocks, further blocking vehicular access on the road between the south Hebron village of al-Tuwani and the commercial hub of Yatta in the southern West Bank. The West Bank is the Palestinian area west of the Jordan river, much of it under Israeli control.
What does David Davis MP really stand for? (Part 1)UKWatch.net - 23 Jul 2008This is the first of a two-part article examining the political history of Conservative MP David Davis, who resigned his parliamentary seat in protest at Labour?s terror legislation enabling 42 days? detention without trial. Part two will be published tomorrow. Veteran Labour ?left? Tony Benn, Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews, Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty and a plethora of liberal journalists from the Guardian and the Independent all hailed David Davis for leading a campaign in defence of civil liberties after his resignation triggered a by-election in Haltemprice and Howden. The Socialist Equality Party stood Chris Talbot against this attempt to corral hostility to the Labour government behind Davis, advocating an independent socialist perspective to defend democratic rights. On the day of the vote, we explained, ?The end product of allowing Davis to be identified as the leader of a supposedly non-partisan movement in defence of civil liberties is to maintain the exclusion of the working class from political life. At the very point where the necessity of breaking with Labour is becoming clear to millions of people, and when the most thoughtful layers are looking for a political alternative, workers are urged to either remain loyal to Labour despite everything or to back the Tories.? Just what it means to lend credence to Davis?s pretensions to be a civil libertarian, and what the working class can expect from any government of which he is a part, is illustrated by his own writings. Davis is hardly prolific when it comes to setting pen to paper. However, in the late 1980s, he did publish two pamphlets for the right-wing Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) that refute any and all claims he and his newfound allies might now make for him to be a guardian of democratic rights. They make clear that as far as working people were concerned, Davis?s aim was to deprive them of any possibility of mounting an independent defence of jobs, wages and conditions. In the name of ?allowing management to manage,? he sought to both utilise and extend the draconian anti-union laws enacted by his party leader and political idol Margaret Thatcher in order to outlaw strikes and bust any unions that defied the Tories? sweeping privatisation programme and the ?rationalisation? of industry and public services, at the expense of thousands of jobs. As someone representing a constituency adjoining the seaport of Hull, Davis centred his attention initially on plans to deregulate Britain?s docks. In 1988, the then MP for Boothferry, largely merged into Haltemprice and Howden in 1996, published a pamphlet for the CPS, entitled, ?Clear the Decks: Abolish the National Dock Labour Scheme.? The National Dock Labour Scheme (NDLS) was first introduced by the Labour government in 1947, in response to the rank-and-file wildcat dock strike of 1945. The strike was opposed by the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), and the government used troops to keep the ports open. It ended after six weeks when the striking dockers accepted an assurance from the TGWU leaders that they would negotiate a ?Dockers? Charter? with the government. The NDLS promised an end to casual labour by giving dockers the legal right to minimum work, holidays, sick pay and pensions. It was administered by a National Dock Labour Board, made up of equal representation from unions and management, and also gave the unions a veto over dismissals and control over recruitment. Registered dockers who were laid off by any of the 150 firms bound by the scheme had to be taken on by another firm or be paid compensation. By the time of Davis?s pamphlet, employers at the 60 British ports were all covered by the scheme. Davis wanted an end to this situation. Above all, he sought the destruction of dual union-management control, the guaranteed employment rights for Registered Dock Workers (RDW) and other protections. He denounced these measures as ?restrictive practices.? The preamble in his pamphlet declared, ?This paper demonstrates how unjust and ludicrous existing legislation is. If Britain is to seize fully the economic opportunities which will be offered by the Single European Act after 1992, the Dock Labour Scheme must be abolished. Legislation must be brought forward to end the Scheme; and steps be taken by the Government to secure the profitable expansion of Britain?s ports industry in order to meet the demands of a single European Market with 320 million consumers.? Davis complains that a docker fired by an employer could not then be prevented from working elsewhere in the industry without the agreement of the Local Board. He cites as an extreme case one worker who was convicted of ?smuggling? but continued to work on the docks. He lists various ?abuses? such as ?bobbing or welting??setting too high a figure for workers needed for a particular job so some ?bob-off? home?and ?Ghosting??enforcing a non-registered dockworker carrying out work on the docks to be monitored by an RDW. All of this is used to portray the registered dockers as a group of corrupt time-wasters, who should be dealt with for the benefit of everyone else. What he actually wanted was to impose massive job cuts and greater levels of exploitation and thereby secure bigger profits for his corporate friends. Strike-breaking and union-busting One passage is revealing in that it explains how Davis saw the attack on the dockers as a continuation of the destruction of Britain?s mining industry, after the defeat of the 1984-1985 miners? strike. He states, ?Another difficulty which arises from the Scheme is that the port employers can be powerless to prevent political strikes.? He gives as his example a July 9 strike in 1984 at Immingham that escalated to a national strike, when the British Steel Corporation used non-registered dockers to unload iron ore. ?In light of the miners strike,? he writes, ?it was important for British Steel that the work should continue.? The national strike was to continue until July 21. Davis was incensed, as this was a rare example of an industrial action breaking the spirit, if not the letter, of Tory anti-union laws prohibiting so-called secondary action: ?This example shows how the TGWU is able to manipulate the Scheme for its own political purposes, in this case giving support to the miners.? Apart from this incident, the TGWU, like the rest of Britain?s unions, never did challenge the anti-union laws and bring out their members in solidarity with the striking miners?who were isolated and defeated. In contrast, Davis was prepared to do whatever was necessary to defeat both the miners and the dockers, using the legal powers of sequestration against the TGWU to possibly bankrupt and break the union that earlier had been employed against the National Union of Mineworkers. Davis anticipated that the TGWU would call a strike should the government determine to abolish the NDLS. He stressed that the combined effect of the anti-union laws and the propaganda campaign he played a part in would isolate the dockers, noting that if a strike were to involve non-scheme ports then it would be illegal: ?If the TGWU is to have immunity from civil actions for damages resulting from a dock strike, it would have to be recognised by the law as a ?trade dispute?...if the eventual decision went against the TGWU it would risk a large fine and the possible sequestration of all its assets if it persisted with a strike.? He continues, ?The legislation, however, on trade unions and industrial disputes brought in by this Government, has laid down that a sympathy strike, by definition, cannot be ?in contemplation, or furtherance of a trade dispute.? Therefore if the non-Scheme workers were called out on strike in sympathy with the Scheme port RDWs, the employers in the non-Scheme ports would be able to obtain injunctions against the trade unions involved and damages for any losses incurred.? The National Dock Labour Scheme was finally abolished in 1989, the year after the publication of Davis?s pamphlet. A revealing speech The dockers came out on strike in July of that year, but this was defeated without the need to implement Davis?s full agenda. However, a speech delivered in Australia in 1990 by the former director of Britain?s National Association of Port Employers, Nicholas Finney OBE, vividly describes the nature of the campaign waged against the dockers in which Davis played such a prominent role. Finney describes how the port employers prepared for the abolishing of the Scheme: ?When the confrontation came, a number of important factors made a difference to the outcome… ?We held two major conferences before we were sure the government was actually ready and these conferences were to try to persuade employers to plan in advance how they would go about setting new working patterns, how they would set about breaking down the demarcation lines, how they would go about setting new pay agreements, new manning levels, etc. Fundamentally and long before the government repealed the scheme, we took the decision that the employers were going to abandon all national and port pay bargaining. ?The campaign was conducted through parliament by using every possible parliamentary device. Early day motions, adjournment debates, etc. We had three MPs who really acted as our voice in Parliament. They did all the hard work, they talked to the other MPs, they introduced briefing materials into the House of Commons, and we made sure that they were always well supplied with appropriate material. ?We talked to influential political bodies (like your own) such as the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies, the No 10 Policy Unit, the Aims of Industry. We made sure that those people who really had influence in government were fully committed and would themselves talk to a wide range of people. It was too serious an issue to just leave to transport or employment ministers. We knew that it would be a Cabinet decision; we knew we had to get people like the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Foreign Secretary on our side. So we used every political body which had influence. We also used the press and media. We constantly searched out and supplied the media with anti-docker stories, headlines such as ?welcome return even if the man?s a thief? or ?ghosts who keep vanishing?; ?twenty things you never knew about fiddling dockers,? ?they can?t be fired.? These headlines were all designed to make it easier for the dockers to be isolated. By the time government acted every national newspaper at one time or another had published an editorial calling for the government to end the dock labour scheme. ?We had a Times columnist write headlines like ?dock ages on the docks,? ?queer seaside customs,? ?legalised extortion racket,? ?time to end it,? ?block those dock rip offs.? We also encouraged radio and television to do documentary programmes on the docks scandal. ?We commissioned economic studies. One particularly important economic study (and perhaps it is worth thinking of using in the Australian scenario) was to try and prove that by getting rid of the dock labour scheme, you actually create many more jobs than you lose. Getting rid of the restrictions on the waterfront meant a whole new world in ?investment opportunity.? We sought two benefits from this approach. One, to make it much more difficult for the Labour Party and for the unions to argue against repeal, and secondly to make sure we could drive a wedge home to isolate dockers and describe them as a selfish, small group of workers who were actually stopping people from gaining jobs in unemployment black spots which frequently were in under-developed city dock areas which had been derelict for many years.? To be continued
People Before Profit Charter strikes a chord across the picket linesUKWatch.net - 23 Jul 2008The cost of food, petrol and fuel is going through the roof, with gas bills predicted to hit 1,000 a year in coming years. Meanwhile workers are being told they have to swallow pay cuts in real terms. Yet at the same time chief executives at the BBC and Network Rail are getting bonuses and pay rises of hundreds of thousands of pounds. All this has underlined the urgency of the People Before Profit Charter, which lays out ten demands to defend workers? living standards in the face of mounting economic crisis. Magnificent Hundreds of people have signed up to the charter since its recent launch, including many involved in last week?s magnificent strikes by local government and Argos workers ?I visited the picket line at Argos?s Bridgwater depot last week,? reports Simon from Bristol. ?Some 37 pickets signed the charter.? Many people reported great enthusiasm for the People Before Profit Charter from council workers? picket lines on Wednesday and Thursday last week. The week before some 17 striking workers at the British Museum signed up to the charter. Others signing it include Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the NUJ journalists? union. The People Before Profit Charter has been launched by trade unionists, housing campaigners, students and pensioners as a response to attempts by bosses and government ministers to make workers pay for their economic crisis. The charter?s ten points put forward proposals on a number of issues that would improve the lives of millions of people. These include decent pay rises, taxing corporations, improving workers? rights, opposing privatisation, building council homes, opposing racism and war, improving pensions, abolishing tuition fees and increasing the minimum wage Supporters of the charter are now calling on people to raise support for it in their local union branch, pensioners? group, student union, housing group and other campaigns. People should also continue to ask their workmates, neighbours and friends to sign up to the charter. The level of support already garnered shows how deep the anger and concerns of working people go. The People Before Profit Charter can help to mobilise the growing resistance to the attacks on workers ? and it can help provide a left wing answer to the current crisis and halt the right in its tracks. Put your name to it, if you haven?t already. Sign up to these demands Wage increases no lower than the rate of inflation as given by the Retail Price Index. No to the government?s 2 percent pay limit. Increase tax on big companies. Introduce a windfall tax on corporation superprofits, especially those of the oil companies. Repeal the Tory anti-union laws. Support the Trade Union Freedom Bill. Unsold houses and flats should be taken over by local councils to ease the housing crisis. No house repossessions. For an emergency programme of council house building. Stop the privatisation of public services. Free and equal health and education services available to all. End the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and use the money to expand public services. Stop the erosion of civil liberties. Abolish tax on fuel and energy for old people and the poor. Re-establish the link between wages and pensions. No to racism. No to the British National Party. No scapegoating of immigrants. Reintroduce grants and abolish tuition fees for students. Increase the minimum wage to 8.00 an hour. Many workers and trade unionists are now engaged in strikes and protests to defend their pay, jobs and services. We pledge ourselves to support their action and to support the campaigns that are dedicated to protecting working people, including Unite Against Fascism Public Services not Private Profit Defend Council Housing Stop the War Coalition Keep Our NHS Public Recent signatories include: Tony Benn, NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear, Jeremy Corbyn MP, POA general secretary Brian Caton, PCS vice president Sue Bond, CWU vice president Jane Loftus, Bfawu general secretary Joe Marino, John Pilger, chair of FBU South Wales brigade Cerith Griffiths, PCS DWP group executive member Helen Flanagan, vice chair of PCS Wales committee Marianne Owens, Unison Wales youth forum chair Chris Daw, PCS rep Cardiff magistrates court Liz Taylor, Unison rep in Vale of Glamorgan Karen Tyre, Lambeth Unison rep Jon Rogers, Stop the War Coalition national convenor Lindsey German, former leader of Lambeth council Ted Knight, Lambeth college UCU branch secretary Susan McDowell, Croydon Unison branch secretary Malcolm Campbell, Lambeth Unison convenor for finance and resources Chester Danners, Newham Unison branch secretary Irene Stacey, PCS Defra London branch organiser Niaz Faiz, Socialist Worker editor Chris Bambery, senior regional Unite industrial organiser Livie Reid, Argos Unite reps Nigel Jones and Joely Bendall, Unite convenor for Bristol council Steve Panes All signatories are in a personal capacity
Karadzic’s Arrest and Western ComplicityUKWatch.net - 23 Jul 2008I never met Radovan Karadzic, though like many in the Balkans, I did once pretend to try and find him. His trademark bouffant vanished long before I first set foot in Bosnia, a decade too late to see Serbs douse Sarajevo with anti-aircraft cannon, if not the ?armed trees? of Dr Karadzic?s warped poetic prophecy. A psychiatrist, his delusions started early. Born in a Montenegrin stable, as World War II spawned Socialist Yugoslavia, his role model wasn?t just his father Vuk, a Serbian militiaman who fought both the Nazis and the Partisan resistance. In time, he grew to see himself as heir to a far more celebrated Vuk Karadzic: the poet, folklorist and father of Serbian orthography. By the outbreak of war in 1992, this linguist namesake?s spirit had long since possessed Dr Karadzic, who was lured into politics in the 1960s by an infamous nationalist writer. Visitors to his mountain redoubt were regaled with folk tales of Serbian suffering, as well as claims that Bosnia?s Muslims were slaughtering themselves, or fleeing their homes in gratitude to join ethnic kin elsewhere. Some were even treated to his singing. From a lopsided gawp, the Bosnian Serb leader would wail about his people?s historical woes, mawkish epics backed by a single-stringed lyre called a gusle, the traditional grating accompaniment to Balkan laments. The peasants these anthems eulogised were all that remained when I arrived. And they weren?t about to betray their hero to prying outsiders, even for a $5 million bounty. For years, Dr Karadzic had roamed the wilds of Serb-run eastern Bosnia, unhindered by thousands of NATO soldiers who?d been sent to police the peace. He?d disguised himself as a priest, some said, shorn of his grey shock and sporting a beard. Others reported ?sightings? worthy of Elvis: in cafs, at funerals, and even poetry readings. But if they?d phoned them in to NATO, the response had never been swift enough to threaten capture. Rewards seemed no match for the smuggled loot that bought Europe?s most notorious fugitive freedom to do as he pleased. Or did it? While there?s little doubt Dr Karadzic stole a fortune, having been convicted of fraud and embezzlement before the war, he wasn?t just an outlaw holed up with mercenaries, defying wary pursuers to take casualties. The weather-beaten folk he went to ground amongst had been reared on tales of centuries of relentless oppression. Even if they loathed the man they loved his cause: the avenging of bygone misfortunes, by wanton aggression if needs be. ?They can look for him as much as they want, but they?ll never find him,? a gap-toothed woman told me a few years ago, in one of the shacks that comprised a place called Celebici, where Dr Karadzic was said to have stayed. ?He was a good man. People will protect him.? He also had friends in higher places than these remote mountain hamlets, whether in Serbia or further afield. According to his wife Ljiljana, who still runs the Bosnian Serb Red Cross, when he went to ground in 1997 it was because ?he had an agreement with Richard Holbrooke.? Bill Clinton?s Balkan envoy denies this was part of the deal he struck to end the war, but she claims Mr Holbrooke promised ?the U.S. would leave him alone if he withdrew from the post of president of the Bosnian Serb Republic,? despite his indictment for genocide. Serbian officials said the same. Others pointed fingers at pro-Serb France, whose legionnaires patrolled the hills where Dr Karadzic hid, before he slipped across the border and moved to Belgrade, only to be arrested now that Serbia?s bid to join the European Union seems viable. Occasionally there?d been shoot-outs, and rumours of attempted raids, but NATO mostly targeted Mrs Karadzic and her son, whom it dubbed the renegade leader?s ?support network?. When the French said in 2004 they were preparing to pounce, Serbia asked them to transfer Dr Karadzic to The Hague, recalled the spokeswoman for the tribunal?s former prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte. However, she wrote in her memoirs, this aroused ?the great displeasure of the Americans, who intervened to suspend the operation.? Once again this was promptly denied, along with several similar allegations, variously levelled at Washington, Paris and Moscow. Whatever the truth of them, NATO troops were effectively told not to look for Dr Karadzic, or other suspects, but to arrest them only if encountered ?in the course of their normal duties?. Since there?s only one dirt road into the south-eastern border mountains, and it passes through a Serb town synonymous with war crimes, all of which the police chief denies happened, this seemed somewhat improbable. The NATO commander at the time, an American general called John Sylvester, conceded as much when I met him. ?When we go in there, obviously we are recognised as ?them,? ?they,? ?somebody else,?? he said. ?That makes it difficult to go in on his turf and find him.? Still, he insisted, ?we?ve been looking real hard now for about three years?. That was 2002. ?Of course,? Ms Del Ponte said last year, ?Karadzic could have been easily arrested until 1998, but no one wanted to.? The reason was simple, she said: ?The fear of renewed unrest, which could have put our own soldiers in harm?s way.? A year earlier, Britain?s Ambassador to Bosnia had sought permission to talk to Dr Karadzic, believing he could persuade him to surrender before he vanished. ?I would have been the first senior international Serbian speaker he would have met,? said the envoy, Charles Crawford, who has since retired from diplomatic service. The British foreign secretary, Robin Cook, liked the idea, Crawford said, but ?allowed himself to be bamboozled? by mandarins, who urged him to ask his counterpart in Washington. Mr Cook duly ?consulted Madeleine Albright, who said no.? Another American denial. What lies behind it, like all the others, remains unclear. Perhaps once Dr Karadzic goes on trial, we?ll finally get to hear about what?s been keeping him. The writer was a reporter for the New York Times in the Balkans during 2002 and 2003
Bring Back the WorkhousesUKWatch.net - 23 Jul 2008As the downward economic spiral ensures that millions more people are likely to be unemployed, the government is devising ways to crackdown on and discipline the workshy gets. Last year it was forcing single mums to take jobs, under plans co-devised by a rich investment banker named David Freud (a fucking nobody in other words). This year, again with the help of Mr Freud, they are planning to abolish incapacity benefit and replace it with a more ‘temporary’ scheme that will compel benefits offices to goad the recipients into seeking work. Meanwhile, those on Jobseekers Allowance who remain unemployed for more than a year will have to “pick up litter” and do similar community service, at first for four weeks and then full-time if they don’t snap out of it. Forgive me, but isn’t community service a form of state penalty dealt out to petty criminals? Is the government now saying that unemployment is a crime? The first thing to notice about this is that, as with the rollbacks of pension entitlements, all three major parties are backing this policy. The Tories have embraced it as one of their own. The consensus in favour of systematically dismantling protections for the poor, the old and the sick is rock solid in our political elite. The second is that, with wearisome predictability, some supporters of New Labour are working desperately hard to give this process a left gloss. Johann Hari argues that we cannot defend the current system in which millions of people are left to rot on the dole. True enough, but a) that is not a function of the welfare state, but of the capitalist economy which requires and produces a reserve army of labour; and b) what Johann is defending is the most authoritarian version of supply-side economics, which is quackery of a kind that Enlightenment-fetishists ought to be seriously worried about. Hari argues that people should be forced to do menial, generally pointless, labour in order to qualify for miserable benefits. He has an inertia-ridden, spliff-smoking friend named ‘Andy’ whom he thinks would benefit from cleaning graffiti or picking up litter. It would reconnect him with the world of work, force him to exercise his talents, and so on. Otherwise, he will remain listless and idle. And anyway, so the argument goes, if Labour doesn’t do it, the Tories will in a much nastier way. I am not going to waste time arguing over anecdotes. Let’s start with the real world. As far as incapacity benefits are concerned, as I have pointed out before, there is no serious prospect of meeting the government’s reduction targets even with the most punitive measures. This is because the best research indicates that: a) the recipients are largely genuinely incapacitated, contrary to the claims made by David Freud who has asserted that only a third of recipients are genuine; b) they live in areas where work is scarce and are the component of the labour force that is least attractive to employers, even if they can do a limited range of tasks, so the jobs for them largely don’t exist; c) the theoretical commitment, ie the belief that an added supply of labour will create its own demand in accord with neoclassical economics, is barmy and unsupportable. Now, let’s talk about jobseekers. How many jobseekers are there at any one time, and how many jobs exist for them? At the moment, the ILO estimate of unemployment for the UK is just over 1.6m (and growing). The number of jobs available in the UK economy is just over 650,000 (and contracting). (See the most recent ONS stats here [pdf]). So, even under the best conditions, with vacancies closely matching local skill distributions and educational levels, and with employers willing to accept local populations, there would still be a vast pool of people unemployed through no fault on their own part. And they should be compelled to carry out petty, punitive labour just so that they don’t lose sight of what work really means? This is reactionary drivel. Why doesn’t Johann call for massive state investment in job creation? Why not offer people dignified, meaningful, public service work, with decent wages? Rather than what turns out to be a coercive system designed to make the receipt of benefits as unpleasant as possible for those concerned? After all, if litter really needs cleaning up and graffiti really needs dealing with, why don’t we have the council services to take care of it? Could it be that councils, particularly in working class areas, have been run down for years and forced to rely increasingly on local levies that can’t make up the shortfall, even as the government obliges them to get involved in extremely costly PFI programmes? If we’re not down with public works programmes and job creation, why not simply make the system more redistributive? In other words, rather than capitulating to the hysteria about slackers on our taxes, why not simply say that those who have benefited most from an economy that keeps millions in unemployment should be obliged to pay the most to secure a decent livelihood for them in the interim of their incapacity or lack of paid employment. As they can hardly be relied upon to do so voluntarily, they will be expected to pay higher taxes on their salaries, bonuses, investments and profits. The poorest, meanwhile, the majority earning less than the mean income, could either have taxes reduced or abolished. The reason Johann Hari can talk like this is because he accepts a moral fairy tale: benefits are some sort of charity in which nice middle class people part with a portion of their income to support the poor. That much is patently obvious from his opening shot. But the welfare state is not a charity. It is a modestly redistributive model to which everyone in work contributes. Most of those receiving benefits will have paid taxes at some point, or will at some point in the future. They do not need to be ordered around and demeaned by forced labour when at some point in their life they fall on hard times. Even those who have never paid taxes and, for the sake of argument, are conscientious layabouts who avoid the labour market (and who can blame them, given that most people cannot expect the relative security, dignity, fame and financial rewards that a newspaper columnist will receive?), don’t need to be penalised in this way. First of all, even if it could work, it would require a nightmare scenario to do so. To really get to grips with the supposed recalcitrant spliff-heads and daytime-telly addicts (my stock of cliche is rapidly running out), you would have to construct a state bureaucracy so intrusive, and so arrogant and overbearing, that it would inevitably bring large swathes of even the ‘deserving poor’ under its surveillance and constant harrassment. People who have spent their lives contributing to the society would find themselves battered with ‘work-oriented interviews’, phone calls, demands for information, allocations for miserable ‘community service’ work. Constant testing and grading, and in the case of the incapacitated, inspection by GPs pressured with reward-focused targets, would be the motif if such a pointless exercise. Even if you could single out the tiny minority of putative couch potatoes, which of course you cannot, it would save the taxpayer next to nothing and produce no overall benefit. The politicians who are devising these schemes have every reason to know all this. They are not targeting the ‘Andys’ of this world, even if Andy is unfortunate enough to exist and to have a priggish moralist like Hari as a friend. The intention is to, as fully as possible, role back the welfare state – not to replace it with a version that people like Johann Hari can defend in good conscience, but to reduce it to a shell. That requires, as with the attack on the US social security system (scheduled to resume under Obama, I bet you), the contrivance of ‘crises’. Suddenly, we lack the money for all this luxury, suddenly there is a financial gap, a shortfall, and there are all these millions of people using the system when they should be in paid work… I suspect what really motivates Johann Hari’s defense of the government is the concluding argument, which is that the Tories would impose a much worse scheme. It may indeed be so, but that is no defense of the government’s policy. Of course, there is a great pressure on supporters of New Labour to find a way to defend the government or shut up, so as not to give any quarter to the resurgent Tories. But the idea that one can neutralise certain pressures by giving into them, attempting to co-opt and tame them, is nonsensical. It has never worked, not when the issue is immigrants, asylum seekers, Islam, wheelchair layabouts, crime, or any other hot button topic you can think of. The appetite of big business and investors for lower corporation taxes, more privatisation, more and more opportunities for accumulation with less of what they consider an unconscionable burden, is unquenchable. There is nothing you can give them that will stop them coming back in their media and their lobby groups for much, much more. Moreover, once you tell people that the David Freuds of this world are right, and that there is indeed a problem roughly as they describe it with solutions roughly as they prescribe them, you shift the argument away from social justice and the obvious way in which people are victimised by this economy, and the crying need to reverse the policies of the Thatcher years and shift power and wealth back to working people. You then get an argument about just how authoritarian the government should be, how much benefits should be cut, and under what circumstances, who should be targeted and how, etc etc. And you find yourself complicit in a process that targets and cheats the poorest, while assuring everyone that it is the progressive thing to do.
