ELECTION MANIFESTO:
SOCIALISM NOT CAPITALISM
Before the 1997 election Blair said: "people want honest politics, and they are
going to get it” (quoted in House of Commons, 9 July 1997). But what they
wanted and what they got were poles apart. The Blair government has
delivered umpteen U-turns: from pensions to prisons, from railways to "rough
sleepers", from student grants to sales of arms - you name it, and the people
who campaigned over that issue were disappointed. Promises met the bitter
reality of capitalism and were broken
“Education, education, education" said Blair. The school system is in crisis.
Droves of teachers have left teaching and the shortage of teachers has reduced
many schools to a four-day week or classes forced to share a teacher. "Britain
has 400,000 teachers in its classrooms, and 400,000 who are not" (Observer,
10 December 2000). The announcement that "the day of the bog-standard
comprehensive is over", when comprehensives had been a ‘core' Labour policy
for decades, contrasted with Blunkett's guarantee: "no selection either by
examination or interview under a Labour government" (Labour Conference,
1995). Workers under capitalism get schooled for employment and future
exploitation. Only the rich get educated for a life of privilege
Likewise the NHS with its rising staff shortages - 1,000 GPs and 14,000 nurses
are needed (November-December 2000). The promise of shorter waiting lists
has mysteriously become the reality of longer waiting times, ie you have to
wait longer before seeing a consultant and joining the waiting list. Capitalism
cannot meet the needs of all society
The government declared war on 'poverty': they renamed it ‘social exclusion’
But the reality of increasing poverty resulted in 55,000 winter deaths of
pensioners from “cold-related illnesses" (December 1999-March 2000), the
highest such figure since 1976 (Observer, 26 November 2000).
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