Blue Labour

We have had New Labour and their third way. Now it is Blue Labour and the end of the way.

The idea of freedom is shoved down our throats through the education and media systems. “National” security is a term related only to security of the state. Food security, health care security, housing security is a whole different matter. The capitalist dream has a malicious and selfish intent. The owners of wealth can control access to human needs and they may demand a price for whatever it is the individual needs. It’s all about the class that benefits. Those that are privileged of set the agenda, enact the legislation, and defining what is important and what is not.The wealthy class not only own everything, they also control everything. No human being should suffer and die due to lack of access to vital needs such as medicine, shelter, or food. This is a quiet and pernicious violence perpetrated against those most in need. A poor person is certainly neither free nor secure.

According to UNICEF, nearly half the world's population lives on less than $2.50 a day. One billion children live in poverty, and 22,000 of them die each day because of it. More than one billion people lack access to adequate drinking water, and 400 million of those are children. Almost a billion people go hungry every day. A report early this year by Oxfam International revealed that the combined income of the richest 100 people in the world is enough to end global poverty four times over. That is worth repeating - the incomes of a hundred people out of the seven billion on the planet could fix that, and then fix it again, and then fix it again, and then fix it again. At the same time companies are sitting on a cash stockpile of $1.73 trillion. That's "trillion."

According to WHO of the 39 million people living with HIV only eight million have access to antiretroviral drugs, 660, 000 died from malaria in 2010, and in 2011 8.7 million people fell ill with tuberculosis. All of this despite comparatively easy technological fixes being available. Around the world, for millions of people, the cause of their illness is poverty; lack of nutritious food and clean water, poor sanitary conditions in which to live, and lack of education and employment. Poverty is the cause, and sickness is the result. But of course we already know that. Everyone knows that poverty and poor health are closely connected. Perhaps what we don't always remember quite so well is that it doesn't need to be this way.

It's estimated that the wealthiest 0.1% of people in the world own 81% of the financial wealth in the world. In fact, the richest 300 individuals in the world have the same amount of wealth as the poorest 3 billion. Capitalism is a poverty creation business.

There is no evidence that awareness of injustice will automatically lead anyone to correct it. There has been no social movements like the Civil Rights struggle despite all we hoped for in Occupy Wall St, Occupy St Pauls and other protests but having raised the question of the greed of the “bad” corporations, they fell short of challenging the system of capitalism itself.
Politicians continue to protect existing systems of power. Capitalists continue to maximise profit without concern, and the majority of people decline to question the status quo. In response to the recession and the imposition of the stern austerity measures there are no mass demonstrations. Homelessness and actual hunger is something left to religious pray-to-eat charities and food banks. No nationwide strikes. Government departments sharpen each others knives to begin slashing social security and welfare benefits. Where’s the collective outrage and anger? The environment is being raped and ravaged and pillaged, and we look in vain for a popular real rebellion.

We need a revolution. In the struggles that lie ahead, the workers in the labour movement have to recognise that it is no use tinkering with capitalism, it must be overthrown and replaced by a new system of society. Instead, we are offered the Labour Party out-doing the right-wing with their “family, flag and faith” rhetoric. The outstanding feature of the Labour Party is that they intend to continue with the present policy of the ConDem Coalition. They openly advocate class collaboration, no longer camoflaging IT with the pretence of being the protectors of the welfare state.