Back to the dark days of Thatcher

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

Back to the dark days of Thatcher

(Monday 17 November 2008)

by PAUL HASTE




REMEMBER HER? Not since the dark days of Thatcher's Britain have so many people been without work.



UNIONS and left MPs blamed the "Thatcherite free market for bringing us a Thatcherite recession" on Monday after bosses warned that they would throw three million workers on the dole in 2009.

Bosses' club CBI deputy director John Cridland made the threat as he issued a warning that the looming recession was "likely to be deeper and longer lasting than we had thought."


Executives at the British Chambers of Commerce added to the gloom by claiming that falling profits would mean businesses cutting jobs and forcing unemployment to levels not seen since Tory Premier Margaret Thatcher devastated the economy in the early 1980s.


The claims forced Business Secretary Peter Mandelson to admit what every worker already knows - that Britain is already in a recession, although he insisted that it had "not been made by the government."


But Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn countered that it was the government's toleration of the "Thatcherite free market that has brought us this recreation of Thatcherite recession."


Fellow left MP and Left Economics Advisory Panel chairman John McDonnell cautioned that "the capitalist class will try to make working people suffer as they try to protect themselves from the effects of their crisis."


Workers now have to "do everything they can to defend our class," he stressed.


The MPs urged ministers to step up public investment in manufacturing to prevent workers' jobs going to the wall and to heed the TUC call for an increase in the minimum wage, unemployment benefits and redundancy pay to help the poorest.


"Tax cuts and benefit increases will increase the spending power of low-income families," Mr Corbyn pointed out.


"But they do not go far enough. The government should run the now publicly funded banks in a socially responsible way, close tax loopholes for the rich and clamp down on tax havens to repatriate companies' exorbitant profits."


Unite union joint general secretary Tony Woodley endorsed the call for the rich to pay "their fair share" to help stave off the effects of the recession.


Following up his union's call for a "new economic order," Mr Woodley demanded that the government goes after companies and "rich individuals who avoid paying as much as £25 billion in tax each year.


"Working people are facing tough times even while they have to fund massive tax concessions for the super-rich and bail-outs for the banks," he stormed.


"But, with unemployment on the rise and a recession biting, this money could be better used to help those hard-working families who need it."
Mr Woodley's point was underlined by the dramatic loss of £8 billion of taxpayers' cash as shares in banks bailed out by the government crashed on the stock exchange.


The CBI warning of an even deeper recession sent the value of HBOS, Lloyds TSB and Bank of Scotland stock plummeting as wealthy City traders decided to hold onto their cash rather than buy the government-backed shares.

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