Recent polls have revealed that people are clearly not thinking the way the Tories and big business would like them to, confirming that the crisis of the system has had a profound effect on people and how they view society. Trust in the bankers to run the economy has fallen, whilst trust in the trade unions has risen. This represents a damning indictment of the capitalist campaign to discredit the organisations of labour.
The latest British Social Attitudes annual survey has revealed that people are clearly not thinking the way the Tories and big business would like them to.
The survey, compiled by NatCen Social Research from an interview pool of over three thousand people in the UK, has confirmed that the crisis of the system has had a profound effect on people and how they view society.
People were asked how well various institutions were run and the results compared with a similar survey carried out in 1983 at the height of Thatcherism. In 1983, 90% of people felt banks were well run, now this figure stands at just 19%.
In 1983, 53% felt newspapers were well run, today just 27%. However, despite all the propaganda from the media and right-wing politicians, the number of people who think trade unions are well run has gone up from 29% to 33%.
This represents a damning indictment of the capitalist campaign to discredit the organisations of labour. It shows that people understand that in the final analysis it is the trade union movement alone which has the power to stand up for workers in the workplace. All attempts to show that unions are “outdated, irrelevant etc.” have clearly failed.
The effects of the recession and the endless stream of cuts, job losses and pay freezes have also affected how people view unemployment and benefits, an area where the Tory press have been spewing out lie after lie for decades now. In just over a year, the number of people who believe that benefits were too high and stop people from seeking work (the Tory line on unemployment) has fallen by 11% down to 51%.
At the same time, the percentage of people who think that cutting benefits “damages too many people’s lives” has gone up by 5%. In 2008, 68% of people believed that the unemployed could find a job if they really wanted to. Now that figure is just 54%. Again, grim reality has cut across the Tory lies.
Most interestingly of all, the survey has revealed that, over a thirty-year period, the proportion of people who believe themselves to be working class has remained constant. Far from destroying working class roots, the last period of booms and slumps has only served to reinforce them.
