KARL Marx argued that: “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is ... at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation at the opposite pole, ie on the side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital.”
The shocking report by the UN into the affects of UK Government policies towards the poor shows Marx’s analysis to be prescient.
The UN pulled no punches, calling Tory polices “punitive”, “mean-spirited” and “callous”.The response of the Tories was to deny reality.
The ruling elite seized on the 2008 financial crisis to impose savage austerity measures. Pay cuts, wage freezes and deep cuts in services and welfare provision were proclaimed as a means of eliminating the massive deficit built up due to the bail-out of the banks and super-rich.
However, far from cutting the debt, it has risen to £1.7 trillion. Interest payments to the same banks whose massive losses were socialised at taxpayers’ expense, cost the UK population £46 billion just in the one year, 2015/2016.
At the other pole, the collapse in wages and living standards since 2008 has no precedent. Wages have collapsed at the same rate as Greece. Last year the Resolution Foundation estimated that wages would fall for the next 60 consecutive quarters. The governments own forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), has said that austerity must last another 50 years to pay for the last crash.
According to the Sunday Times rich list, in 2009 Britain’s richest 1000 families had a collective wealth of £258bn. By 2015 this had risen to £547bn. In 2018 it stood at £728bn.
Brexit was a direct consequence of New Labour misrule. The terminal rot of the political order was established by Blair and Brown, expressed above all in the betrayals, wholesale corruption and relentless attacks upon working people over the course of 13 years in government, serving as the preferred instrument of rule of finance capital.
What is needed to remedy the situation are measures to break the economic stranglehold of a wealthy elite over the productive forces. This essential first step in ensuring the economy is reorganised in the interest of social need, not private greed.
Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee
AMIDST all the hype and shambles from the Westminster Government regarding Brexit, I read your rather sobering headline ‘UN slams Tories for inflicting “great misery” on the poor’ (November 17). The United Nations report on the level of poverty inflicted on the poor and vulnerable in the UK is indeed shameful. However, your report went on to highlight that the UN had some praise for the Scottish Government’s efforts to mitigate poverty in Scotland with the Scottish Welfare Fund – which, as reported, has dealt with 300,000 applications, paying out in excess of £173 million in five years.
The UN report branded the policies of the Conservative government in Westminster punitive, mean-spirited and callous and should be a real conscious read for new Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd MP. This UN report suggests UK Government ministers are in denial of the scale of poverty which is being inflicted on the needy and vulnerable, something that has been very evident during the roll-out of Universal Credit, yet the roll-out continues.
Amber Rudd could hit the road running by demanding an immediate halt to the continued roll-out of Universal Credit, becoming a real voice in the government for those who this UN report highlights are suffering as a direct result of her government’s welfare policies.
Catriona C Clark
Falkirk
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