The General Election 2015 takes place tomorrow. Whoever finally walks through the door of Number 10 will find civil servants ready to present the bill to enable the next government to meet the agreed legal spending caps on welfare spending. In turn this bill will be paid by the poorest and most needy sections of society.
The General Election 2015 takes place tomorrow. Whoever finally walks through the door of Number 10 will find civil servants ready to present the bill to enable the next government to meet the agreed legal spending caps on welfare spending. In turn this bill will be paid by the poorest and most needy sections of society.
The Guardian newspaper has obtained copies of documents prepared by civil servants to show the sort of cuts a new government will have to carry out if they are to stand any chance of staying within the cap limit. These cuts are described by officials as being “very/highly/extremely controversial”. With good cause it seems.
The options presented include: getting rid of maternity pay; freezing all remaining benefits despite inflation; increasing the hated bedroom tax; stopping under-25s from claiming housing and incapacity benefit; and increasing “testing” for those claiming out-of-work benefits – i.e. more “sanctioning.”
The Tories have tried to avoid saying what they will actually do to hit the welfare spending limits should they win the election and have rubbished the documents by saying that they were prepared in 2014 and never acted on. However, it is clear from the document that few other options are now left available. Already certain Tory ministers from the current government have received official briefings based on the documents.
The welfare spending cap was voted through parliament last year with support from both coalition and, shamefully, Labour benches. Only the SNP and a few rebel Labour MPs stood out against this enforcing of attacks on benefits and welfare. Now we will see the consequences.
This is just part of the grim wave of austerity that the next government will be instructed by big business to carry out in defence of capitalism. By supporting this welfare cap and joining the Tories and Lib-Dems in agreeing to take whatever measures necessary to reduce the state deficit, the Labour leaders have directed themselves down the same road as the current coalition government.
What makes it worse is that all the assessments of what cuts will be needed are based on figures that show the economy continuing at its present predicted level of growth. The question is begged: what happens if the economy slips back into recession – and for many workers there was no recovery – and the pressure on the government starts to increase? Given the weak state of the UK economy and the uncertain situation on the world economic front, this is a very real probability in the near future.
Far from being able to outswim such an economic tsunami, Britain is ill equipped to avoid being overwhelmed. At that point the sort of cuts being suggested will be way too little. This is the true face of the UK in 2015. We are looking at a rotten setup from top to bottom. The task must be to fight for the only real alternative left: socialism and the end of this capitalist system.
Despite all the talk that these cuts are “necessary,” they are only “necessary” because of capitalism and the crisis of their system. The wealth is there to solve all the problems of society but it is being hidden away by big business and the bankers to defend their power and their profits – at our expense. That is the real logic of capital.
This wealth must be taken back by the people who actually have produced it by their labour. A programme of clear socialist measures including the nationalisation of the monopolies, banks and finance houses would free these resources up for the good of all. This is the way forward. It is not welfare spending that we can no longer afford, but the capitalist system itself.
