28.11.1996

As Labour waits in the wings ... Tory offensive continues

Kenneth Clarke’s budget contained no surprises. Both Labour and Tory prepare to prove who can best be His Master’s Voice

For once the budget has turned out to be a moderately interesting event. Nothing to do with the tedious minutiae of Kenneth Clarke’s delivery, almost certainly the last one he will be giving this side of the millennium. We leave it to the bourgeois ‘experts’ to pick over the entrails of Clarke’s speech, hoping to find the holy grail which will enable British capitalism to get back on its feet.

No. The excitement has been provided by the budget ‘scandal’, which saw either a civil servant or a freelance journalist leaking large chunks of Clarke’s prepared speech to the Daily Mirror. Instead of splashing it all over the front page though, its editor, Piers Morgan, did his patriotic duty and sent them back to the government, on the noble grounds that to publish them would have been “reckless”.

Gordon Brown, naturally, was not going to miss an opportunity to laud his patriotic credentials either. He also condemned the civil servant who did the dirty on Clarke, piously claiming that he would have refused to look at the documents if the Daily Mirror had slipped him a copy. Putting on his best statesmanlike pose, Brown stated: “The most important thing to recognise is that the civil servant who did this is serving no public purpose. I do not think anyone should condone the action.”

Farcically, MI5 is now spearheading the hunt to track down the “budget day saboteur”, who has become public enemy number one overnight.

Yet there is a serious side to all this reactionary tomfoolery. Based on the rush for profit, the capitalist system is inescapably and organically speculative. In order to contain excessive speculation which might jeopardise the effectiveness of budgetary changes, the state must prevent them becoming public knowledge in advance. Thus telling the truth becomes a ‘crime’.

The scandal emphasises dramatically the growing convergence of the Tory Party and New Labour, as the political spectrum becomes narrower and narrower. No deviation from the rightwing-led agenda is tolerated - indeed, the idea of straying from the ‘straight and narrow’ is regarded with a deep inner horror by virtually all mainstream politicians.

Clarke’s so-called ‘virtuous budget’ carries on from where he left off last year, assaulting the living conditions of the working class. The 1p reduction in income tax, taking the basic rate down to 23p, will prove to be no consolation to unemployed and low-paid workers. This is a tax that will make the rich richer and leave the poor still poor.

Similarly with the inheritance tax, which sees the starting point being raised from £200,000 to £215,000 - great if you are very wealthy; not so uplifting if you have nothing.

This was a vicious budget, not a virtuous one. Ask the pensioners who have been generously given a £1.30 ‘increase’ in their pensions. I bet they are really looking forward to the cold winter days ahead. Clarke obviously does not care much for children either, to judge by the meagre increase in child benefit - to £11.05 for the first child and £9 for each extra child. This will guarantee that yet more children are born into poverty. The cut in housing benefit for 250,000 single people and the abolition of special benefits for lone parents will also guarantee that even larger numbers will be consigned to penury and grinding hardship.

The next budget will dish out the same medicine - even if it is chancellor Brown standing at the despatch box and leading the offensive.

Paul Greenaway