From an article by Dave Nellist recently published by ‘Coventry Advertiser’. The Advertiser is available free from garages and supermarkets throughout Coventry.
Now the election is over the real bill for the cost of the economic crisis is landing on doormats throughout our area.
In the first half of May, as a legacy from the outgoing government, a 20% cut in adult education funding at City College in Coventry brought the threat to 50 jobs, and inevitable larger classes or cancelled courses. Over in Nuneaton, George Eliot Hospital plans to shut two wards – at the same time that they are doubling the hated car park charges – to begin to deliver their share of £2.4 billion of NHS cuts in the West Midlands over the next four years.
In the second half of the month the new ConDem ‘austerity’ Cabinet (austerity for us that is, 18 of its 23 members are millionaires) announced the axing of 330 local jobs at the IT education agency, BECTA. Another 700 jobs at the QCDA and over 500 employees at the Skills Funding Agency, 2 more government bodies located in Coventry, are also threatened.
Those hundreds of jobs are our share, so far, of government cuts described as “low hanging fruit" – but they are only the first 10% of the further cuts coming in the emergency budget on June 22nd and the wide ranging review of government spending due in the autumn.
If you work at the City College, the Council or a government agency you're probably thinking "why me - what did I do to cause this crisis?" And the answer would be “nothing”. It isn't your fault. It's the bankers and the casino-like market system itself.
Tens and tens of billions of pounds have been poured into failing banks over the last 2 years to protect their shareholders, and the wider financial system, from the consequences of speculation. When I was at school the rule in banking was that they were only allowed to borrow and then lend £5 for every £1 they had in real money. In recent years around the globe banks have been lending £50 for every real £1 they had on deposit. When the crash came, they couldn’t repay their loans.
So it's not our crisis: this is the private debt of banks and speculators who gambled billions. Yet governments, including the last and the present one, are saying we, the public, must take responsibility for those debts. How does that work?
If I went and put £10 at Ladbrokes on a 'dead cert' for the Eurovision Song Contest and it got 'nul points’ I wouldn't expect you, the Reader, to bail me out and give me my £10 back. But that's what the banks expect us to do – rescue them from the consequences of their own gambling.
Just like that Icelandic volcano (and no, I can't pronounce it’s name either) rumbled for months before erupting, I think there's a subterranean mood of anger amongst ordinary working class and middle class people in this country. During the election Ken Clarke was said to be "astonished" about lack of outcry over the massive gulf between the Rich and rest which has developed in recent years. I don't think he'll have to wait much longer before people's anger, just like it did during the Poll Tax, erupts across the country in demands that public services be saved and that the bankers’ system must pay the price.
