Every time you hear Nick Clegg talk about how the
Lib Dems restrained their Tory partners in the Coalition, just think of the
attacks on the welfare state, the NHS reforms and above all the attack on
claimants.  The story below, in last Wednesday’s
Guardian illustrates the reality of what has happened.  Those who couldn’t protect themselves went without
food, had their benefits stopped ‘sanctioned’ and were left to wither on the
vine whilst Ian Duncan Smith flattered the Tory’s multi-millionaire donors.

In all of this the Lib-Dems have been
complicit.   The    poor have paid the bankers’ bills as Clegg
and Cable smiled on what was happening.  
Only now have the Lib-Dems discovered that they opposed the Bedroom Tax
all along!

Today there is no movement against the attacks on
claimants.  Small groups like Brighton Benefits
Campaign exist but they are more concerned with their own sectarian differences
than campaigning on the coal face.  The
attack on benefits affects those in work as well as those who are unemployed.

These attacks are designed to keep wages   down, even at a time of nominal full-employment.  In this they have succeeded.  We have a recovery without any increase in
the price of labour.  The trade union movement
has unfortunately sat idly by doing little or nothing.

There is a desperate need for a mass campaign on the
lines of the anti-poll tax movement to shake up those in power and reverse the
cuts.

Tony Greenstein