DailyRadical

This is a two-part article looking
at the decline in the quality of life for working people in Britain today.
The first article focuses on the workplace, where there has been relative
decline in wages and deterioration in the conditions of employment. The second
part looks at the attack on the 'social wage'. Real wages, i.e. purchasing
power has been declining and the overall infrastructure of what once was an
advanced welfare state, has been crumbling.

Now a policy of wage restraint during a serious financial crisis is, sooner or later a finished recipe for an intensification of the class struggle in Britain. Already the strike figures for this year - before the recent financial meltdown - have outstripped last year's figures

New Labour suffered a humiliating defeat in the recent
local elections, but those left groupings who were hoping to capitalise on
Labour's difficulties also found themselves in a mess. As Ted Grant explained,
the working class always ignore these sectarian grouplets on the fringes of the
labour movement and in times of struggle always turn towards their
traditional organisations.

The New Labour government is on the rocks. The wreckage of
Blairism, under the leadership of Gordon Brown, was dealt a further crushing
blow at the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. A 7,000 Labour majority was turned
into a 7,000 Tory majority in a swing of 17.6%. It was the Tories' first
by-election gain in 30 years.

On the eve of 1946 post-war Britain was on
her knees. The British ruling class reached a deal with the former U.S. allies for
a huge loan, but the repayment conditions were very severe. The Labour leaders
in office were willingly carrying out the dirty job of asking British workers
to postpone any demands to improve their conditions. Ted Grant looked at the
consequences of these policies for the workers.

The Crewe by-election, with an 18% swing to the Tories,
confirms that they are on target for a landslide win in the next general
election. Railway workers and other working class people who have voted Labour
for generations have finally had enough. The betrayals and disappointments of
New Labour have caused these electors to break the habit of a lifetime. Make no
mistake about it. Mass working class abstentions have done for Brown and his
witless crew.

The British National Health Service was set up sixty
years ago, officially on July 5th 1948. It was the result of years of struggle
on the part of the working class for a free universal health service. At its
height it was as close as you could get to a communist principle under
capitalism. Over the years the capitalists have been working hard to drag us
back to the dark days when the poor could not afford decent healthcare.

Present-day economic
conditions demand that the working class fight back. The interests of the
ruling class and the working class are irreconcilable. The bourgeois are
screaming, more cuts, more cuts and the workers shout back
Enough is enough . The stage has been set for a Hot
Spring in Europe.

Today Trades Councils in Britain have been
consciously relegated to the sidelines by the trade union bureaucracy, but in
this article, written at the time of the struggle against the Heath
government's ill-fated Industrial Relations Act [1971] Dudley Edwards outlined
the history of the trades councils in Britain and pointed to their potentially
vital role.