18.04.1996

Blair courts US big business

The warm welcome that US business and establishment figures gave to Tony Blair shows that their profits will be safe in ‘new’ Labour hands

Political wipe-out faces the Tories, as last week’s Staffordshire South-East by-election once again demonstrates. But far from feeling in any way threatened by Blair’s government-in-waiting, the rich - both here and abroad - are rubbing their hands at the prospect.

The ‘five-star’ treatment given to the Labour leader during his visit to the United States is normally reserved for major heads of state. President Clinton and a team of top advisers had a 40-minute meeting with him, followed by solemn discussions with the keepers of America’s purse, federal reserve chairman Robert Rubin and treasury secretary Alan Greenspan.

But Blair sealed the approval of the US big money men with a speech given to the British-American Chamber of Commerce in New York. Gone was all pretence of Labour being a left of centre party with the interests of ordinary workers at heart. It was now an organisation of the “new radical centre”, where distinctions between left and right are irrelevant, and the interests of workers are of course identical to those of the super-rich. This was precisely the idea that Blair courted so theatrically in the US.

He promised to hold down taxes and keep the Tories’ anti-union laws in place. It was important, he said, to encourage entrepreneurs and ‘innovators’, allowing people to become wealthy through hard work and merit.

No doubt he had in mind those like high-flying financier and currency speculator George Soros, who made a cool £1 billion overnight in 1992 when sterling was withdrawn from the exchange rate mechanism. “I don’t think a Labour government would influence or scare foreign investors,” he said (and he should know). “I found him very refreshing.”

Just to show that Blair cares about the ‘less fortunate’ too, he visited a low-income housing scheme in Manhattan. Hardly enough to reassure us that he has the any interest in genuine “equity”. In the USA millions live in conditions of the most grotesque poverty and degradation, alongside those like Soros who flaunt their obscene wealth.

There are of course those who are not quite ready to drop the facade of an ‘equitable’ tax system. Clare Short, Labour’s transport spokesperson caused a furore at the weekend when she said that well-off ‘people like her’ should be prepared to pay more in taxes. She was promptly pulled out of a number of media appointments by top party hacks - just when the Tories were on the ropes over their rail privatisation plans.

Despite this blip, people like Short still play a valuable role for Blair. They help to create the impression among working class voters that Labour may yet offer them some hope - ‘With big business safe in Blair’s hands, Short is bound to make sure that its profits trickle down’.

There are, however, those who should know better. Much of the so-called ‘revolutionary’ left, not least the Socialist Workers Party, will continue their call to vote Labour. They are in good company.

The company of those like George Soros.

Alan Fox