Life under Capitalism

So what’s going to happen now there’s a hung parliament in the UK? First, we need to remember the incessant background noise send out through the media from the City:

Of course, the guys in braces who pop up on Sky every five minutes aren’t lowering themselves to support any given party. What they all want is strong government, strong enough to take the necessary measures on the deficit, and they want it soon. Soon, like Monday morning? ventures the tremulous interviewer, as though in the presence of an oracle. Well, perhaps Tuesday afternoon at the latest, says man in braces, chewing his lip, but soon, or the markets will be displeased, as though this displeasure came from De Lawd Above and has nothing to do with him and his confreres.

Once again, this is much like the same pressure seen after the 2000 US presidental elections to get a quick decision, rather than the right decision, but then it was the Republican party itself, now it’s the “financial markets” directly, worrying that if the wrong government gets in they won’t deliver the deep spending cuts they want. Spending cuts that are needed to free up the money that’s needed for the UK government to pay back the billions it had to borrow to save the very same “financial markets” from their own fuckups two years ago. They want their pound of flesh and they need a “strong government”, preferably a dependable Tory one, to deliver it. It would mean that the scenes Johann Hari witnessed in Hammersmith and Fulham will be repeated all over the UK:

She “panicked” when a bill came through saying she had to pay £12.50 for every hour of care she needed. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, how am I going to do this?’ The more care you need, the higher your bill, so the most disabled people got the highest charges. Everyone was distraught. I had friends who had to choose between having the heating on in winter and paying for their care … I know a 90-year-old woman with macular degeneration who can’t see, and she had to stop her services. There are lots of people who have been left to rot, with nobody checking any more that they’re OK, and I’m sure some of them have ended up in hospital or have died.” One of the council’s senior social services managers seems to have confirmed this, warning in a leaked memo that the charges could place the vulnerable “at risk”.

Debbie co-founded an organisation to fight back – the Hammersmith and Fulham Coalition Against Community Care Cuts – and, after appealing, she finally had her charges cancelled. “But there are a lot of people who can’t appeal,” she says. “You’re talking about very vulnerable people – the very old, the mentally ill, the blind. A lot don’t know how, or would be ruled to have to pay anyway, because the rules are so arbitrary. Now they’re being taken to debt-collection agencies for non-payment. I know an 82-year-old woman who’s never been in debt in her life who is being taken to a debt-collection agency for care she needs just to keep going… They want volunteers to do it instead. But you don’t want to have to ask your friends or a volunteer to pull up your knickers for you.”

That’s why it’s good Gordon Brown has not resigned and should resist the pressure to resign; it makes it that much harder to install a Tory government by coup de main. The weak link is of course Nick Clegg: is he tough enough to stand up to pressure to form a government with the Tories rather than with Labour, tough enough not to be fobbed off with vague promises of electorial reform. If we look at the popular vote more than half the voters voted for left of center parties, so selling a Tory-Liberal coalition as “the will of the voters” is a bit of a cheek, but that seems to be the recieved wisdom the media are parroting. Don’t do it Nick!