Britain: Budget for bosses - Workers under attack “Open for business.” These were the words spoken by chancellor George Osborne as he delivered the most vicious anti-working class budget for generations – a budget for big business indeed! Not since the slash and burn days of the National government in the 1930s, or indeed the Thatcher regime of the early 1980s, have so many cuts been presented in one day. Indeed in outlining a target of 25% cutbacks in many areas of government spending, the coalition has gone way beyond anything attempted by previous chancellors in office.
Britain: Real cost of the banking crisis What has the banking crisis cost us all? Andrew Haldane of the Bank of England has tried to work it all out in a paper called ‘The $100 billion question’. As Socialist Appeal has pointed out many times the ‘banking crisis’ is really a crisis of capitalism, but for the time being we’ll stick with Haldane’s terminology.
Britain: Ruling class prepares for confrontation Britain is heading for a showdown. The British establishment is taking stock of the situation. They are fully aware of the social crisis that is unfolding. The illusions of class harmony have evaporated. They consider that it is time that the working class learned its lesson that capitalism cannot afford any reforms. Counter-reforms are on the order of the day. The workers are therefore being sent to the school of the coalition government whose programme is “red in tooth and claw” austerity.
