Tories will ALWAYS be known as the Nasty Party

Theresa May wants to rid Tories of the ‘nasty party’ tag, It'll never happen. 

Today in an Indian Newspaper Hindustan Times this was reported. 

In April, it will be 50 years since the enigmatic Enoch Powell made his famous ‘rivers of blood’ speech in Wolverhampton, railing against mass migration from India and the Commonwealth. As his shadow looms large over Brexit-bound Britain – immigration and Euroscepticism were the twin pillars of his ideology – his fellow Conservative, Prime Minister Theresa May, did something last fortnight that he would scarcely have approved of: she inducted children of Indian immigrants into her ministerial team, Rishi Sunak, Suella Fernandes and Shailesh Vara. (Alok Sharma was already in).

Powellism is at the heart of the ongoing cut and thrust of Brexit politics in London and Brussels, but May’s expansion of her team is part of her efforts to remove the perception that the Conservative party — in her own words at the 2002 party conference — is seen by many as the ‘nasty party’. The party had earned the tag over decades; in the eyes of the Indian and non-white communities, this was mainly due to its policies on immigration.

They are trying too hard. Tories will always be known as the Nasty Party here in Britain. 

Here's why: 

120, 000 dead because of Tory Austerity.

Over 60s and care home residents most at risk; changes in nurse numbers may be key

The squeeze on public finances since 2010 is linked to nearly 120,000 excess deaths in England, with the over 60s and care home residents bearing the brunt, reveals the first study of its kind, published in the online journal BMJ Open.

The critical factor in these figures may be changed in nurse numbers, say the researchers, who warn that there could be an additional toll of up to 100 deaths every day from now on in.

They estimate that an annual cash injection of £6.3 billion would be needed to close this ‘mortality gap.’

Between 2010 and 2014, the NHS in England has only had a real term annual increase in government funding of 1.3 percent, despite rising patient demand and healthcare costs.

And real term spend on social care has fallen by 1.19 percent every year during the same period, despite a significant projected increase in the numbers of over 85s–those most likely to need social care–from 1.6 million in 2015 to 1.8 million in 2020, say the researchers.

While this mismatch in supply and demand and the funding gaps facing services have been well quantified, the potential impact on population health remains unclear.

To try and address this, the researchers mined nationally available data on population deaths, life expectancy, and potential years of life lost. And they collected data on health and social care resources and finances from 2001 to 2014.

They then compared actual death rates for 2011 to 2014 with those that would be expected, based on trends before spending cuts came into play, and taking account of national and economic factors, such as unemployment rates and pensions.

They categorised their findings by age, place of death, and the local government area in which the death occurred, and used these to estimate future death rates up to 2020.

Finally, they looked at the health and social care funds that would be needed in addition to those already budgeted by the government as of 2016 to close any gaps in death rates.

Analysis of the data showed that between 2001 and 2010, deaths in England fell by an average of 0.77 percent every year, but rose by an average of 0.87 percent every year between 2011 and 2014.

The spending restraints were associated with 45,368 excess deaths between 2010 and 2014 compared with equivalent trends before 2010.

Most of these deaths were among the over 60s and care home residents. And every £10 drop in spending per head on social care was associated with five extra care home deaths per 100,000 of the population, the analysis showed.

These associations remained after further detailed analysis and taking account of global and national economic factors.

Changes in the numbers of hospital and community nurses were the most salient factors in the associations found between spend and care home deaths. From 2001 to 2010 nurse numbers rose by an average of 1.61% every year, but from 2010 to 2014 rose by just 0.07%–20 times lower than in the previous decade.

On the basis of the trends between 2009 and 2014, the researchers estimate that an extra 152,141 people could die between 2015 and 2020, equivalent to nearly 100 extra deaths every day.

The funds needed to close this ‘mortality gap’ would be £6.3 billion every year, or a total of £25.3 billion, they calculate.

This is an observational study so no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, but the findings back up other research in the field, say the researchers.

The study has several policy implications, as it indicates that lower spend on health and social care is “associated with a substantial mortality gap,” they explain.

Universal coverage is undoubtedly important, they write, but it has to be properly financed if it is going to improve health. And the excess deaths among older people and care home residents make a strong case for targeted interventions, they add.

“This includes funding increases in social care, in addition to maintenance or rises in nursing numbers aligned with demand,” they conclude.

Anti Immigration and Islamophobic.

The Tories have struggled so much in the polls and failed to get that "massive landslide" May promised at the General Election they have had to push a far-right agenda to win over the UKIP, BNP, EDL and Britain First fascist vote (lets face it they will never get the left vote) and its worked it has pushed them up in the polls again. 

Hate for poor and disabled people (well anyone that's vulnerable) 

The usual Tory propaganda is doing the round again that you know the usual "Only doleites and scroungers vote Labour, Because they love free things" type crap. 

Another one doing the rounds is "The sick and disabled are making it up because they are lazy and workshy" 

Typical Tory Mentality.

Hate for pensioners

In a scathing attack on Britain's older generation, Lord Bichard, former chief of the Benefits Agency, accused them of being a "negative burden on the state". 

He called for the same tough line taken with benefit scroungers should be used on the elderly and suggested fining them. 

Speaking to a committee of MPs, Lord Bichard said: "Older people who are not very old could be making a very useful contribution to civil society if they were given some incentive or recognition for doing so.

“We’re prepared to say to people if you’re not looking for work, you don’t get a benefit. If you’re old and you’re not contributing in some way, maybe there should be some penalty attached to that. These debates never seem to take place."

And although such a move might be controversial, it would stop older people being a "burden on the state". 

Human and workers rights

Theresa May’s controversial plans to withdraw the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights could be blocked by a legal challenge.

The Prime Minister is widely thought to be planning on running a 2022 election campaign on the basis of withdrawing from the ECHR in a major reform of human rights legislation. 

During the ongoing rail workers dispute against the introduction of Driver Only Operated trains (DOO) and in other recent disputes, a regular comment from strikers has been that their struggles are hampered by Britain’s draconian anti-union and anti-strike laws.

Workers have told WSWS reporters that they would support “all out” strikes of drivers and conductors across the many private franchises that operate Britain’s rail network, but then raise that this would be “difficult” and “illegal.”

The extent of anti-strike legislation in the UK is significant. It indicates the degree to which the democratic rights of the working class have been abridged in favour of capital. The Trade Union Act 2016 — enacted by a Parliament that recently initiated debates aimed at making strikes illegal in key sectors, including transport.

It builds on the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher that enacted the Employment Act of 1980. Under this law, the definition of lawful picketing was restricted to an employee’s own place of work. The right to take secondary action (to strike in support of other workers) was restricted. The Employment Act of 1982 imposed further restrictions. With the 1990 Employment Act, all secondary action was made illegal.

But the reality is that this legislation has rarely been legally enforced because the ruling elite has relied on the Labour and trade union bureaucracy to impose their dictates.

Way back in April 1982, the Trades Union Congress Special Conference voted to oppose the 1982 Act. In the 35 years since no industrial action has ever been called in defiance of the laws. In fact, the unions, with the exception of only a few legal challenges, have effectively policed the anti-union legislation.

In 2002 Unison appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that its right to strike had been subject to unjustified restriction contrary to Article 11 of the European Convention on freedom of assembly.

Significantly, the ECHR threw this out on the grounds that, “While Article 11 includes trade union freedom as a specific aspect of freedom of association, it does not secure any particular treatment of trade union members by the State. There is no express inclusion of a right to strike or an obligation on employers to engage in collective bargaining.”

In 2014, the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) union brought another case before the ECHR. The RMT argued that under UK law, the statutory requirements for a valid strike ballot notice were too strict and imposed an unjustifiable burden on a union seeking to organise industrial action. Those requirements and the ban on secondary strike action were a breach of Article 11, the union claimed.

The RMT’s case was also rejected by the ECHR.

The most devastating indictment of the trade union bureaucracy’s adherence to the anti-union laws—in collaboration with the Blair Labour government—was during and in the aftermath of the 2005 Gate Gourmet workers dispute. Gate Gourmet sacked 670 of its mainly female catering workforce after they walked out in protest when the firm brought in 120 temporary staff as “cover.” This was while the firm was in the process of rolling out a restructuring plan aimed at firing hundreds of full-time staff. The 670 were fired after Gate Gourmet gave them an ultimatum—return to work or be sacked.

In response, 1,000 British Airways ground services staff, who, like the caterers were members of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), began a 24-hour unofficial strike. This led to mass cancellations of flights and the paralysis of Heathrow Airport. The TGWU—a predecessor of the Unite union—opposed the strike and instructed its members to abide by the anti-union laws, thus isolating the striking catering workers and leaving them powerless against their employer.

A few months later the TGWU agreed to a dirty deal with management on a voluntary and compulsory redundancy scheme at Gate Gourmet to cut 675 jobs from the 2,400 strong workforces. Among these were 137 of the dismissed workers, who suffered compulsory redundancy.

Just days before, at the Trades Union Congress annual gathering, delegates had passed an RMT motion calling for the Labour government to enact a trade union freedom bill, endorsing “lawful supportive action,” protection for workers starting from their first day at work and a cut in the notice required to hold a strike ballot.

Chancellor Gordon Brown—the second in command to then Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair—responded to this with a speech in which he confirmed, in line with government policy, that no such changes to the law would be forthcoming. Brown was even more explicit when he told Sky News—owned by arch strike breaker Rupert Murdoch—“There will be no return to the old failed conflicts of the past, or the disorder or the secondary action of the past.”

Finally, Blair himself told the union heads at the TUC’s conference dinner that evening, “It would be dishonest to tell you any Labour government is going to legislate a return to secondary action. It won’t happen.”

The 1997-2010 pro-business Labour government defended and upheld every part of decades of anti-strike legislation, with the unions refusing to oppose them.

The experiences that workers have passed through in the decades since 1979 demonstrate that the unions can no longer be described as working-class organisations. They function as an arm of management in enforcing their diktats. In fact, it would be more correct to describe the legislation restricting strikes not as anti-union laws, but as “pro-trade union bureaucracy laws.”

The failure of the nationally based unions to defend the working class is evident on an international scale. The evolution of the unions into entities which serve the capitalist class at the expense of workers is not the product of this or that rotten trade union leader.

Rather, the evolution of the trade unions has objective causes and arises out of fundamental features of this form of organisation.

In his lecture “Marxism and the Trade Unions,” the chairman of the World Socialist Web Site international editorial board, David North, stated: “Standing on the basis of capitalist production relations, the trade unions are, by their very nature, compelled to adopt an essentially hostile attitude toward the class struggle. Directing their efforts toward securing agreements with employers that fix the price of labour power and determine the general conditions in which surplus value will be pumped out of the workers, the trade unions are obliged to guarantee that their members supply their labour power in accordance with the terms of the negotiated contracts. As Gramsci notes, ‘The union represents legality, and must aim to make its members respect that legality.’

“The defence of legality means the suppression of the class struggle, which, in the very nature of things, means that the trade unions ultimately undermine their ability to achieve even the limited aims to which they are officially dedicated. Herein lies the contradiction upon which trade unionism flounders.” [David North, The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished 20th Century, Mehring Books, pp 138-39]

In the rail workers strike, the drivers union ASLEF and the RMT have done everything to ensure that drivers and conductors—who work the same trains—are isolated from one another. In stark contrast, ASLEF drivers at Southern Govia Thameslink Railway have twice, in February and this month, thrown out a sell-out deal the union agreed with management. Most significant was the refusal on March 13—and again in a 24-hour strike this month—by those ASLEF drivers to cross picket lines of RMT conductors at Merseyrail.

Such a rebellion points the way forward for the working class in the struggles they confront. The most essential tasks facing rail workers and all others who are opposing the devastating onslaught against their jobs, terms and conditions is the development of new rank-and-file fighting organisations, independent of the trade unions.

In imposing DOO, train companies are implementing Conservative government policy aimed at sacking thousands of workers and increasing productivity. In this and every other struggle, workers are thrust into a conflict with all the political institutions of the capitalist state. To carry out this struggle, workers need independent organisations, but to lead it they require a political party.