"Skiing or horse riding this weekend, I just can't decide!"

On June 22nd the ConDem government will release its emergency budget, plunging us into a nightmare of cuts and job losses. In a speech today Posh PM David Cameron gave some hint as to his real economic agenda.

He said:

”How we deal with these things will affect our economy, our society – indeed our whole way of life. ‘The decisions we make will affect every single person in our country. And the effects of those decisions will stay with us for years, perhaps decades, to come.”

When he says our way of life is going to have to change, the way of life he’s referring to is the right of public sector workers to have a job that pays them enough to live on, or the right of people thrown out of work by capitalism to receive some support to keep them alive.

King William IV's shagging about produced, 5 generations later, our current PM

You can bet he doesn’t mean his own way of life. He and his wife have a combined wealth of £30 million. He’s a direct descendant of King William IV and his mistress of the time, making him a fifth cousin of the Queen. Everybody knows he went Eton ‘Hogwarts for Bastards’ College, which costs over 24 grand a year in fees. No doubt some of his vast stack of cash makes a big contribution towards his stated hobby of horse riding, alongside other jolly fun outdoor pursuits that the rest of us don’t have time or cash to pursue.

Then there’s tosspot deputy PM Nicholas William Peter Clegg, worth personally £1.9 million. This horsefly enjoys walking near his expensive home in the Peak District. Growing up, when he wasn’t at his own uber-posh Westminster school at the cost of around 2o grand a year, he had access to his rich Daddy’s multiple homes in London, the Chilterns and skiing chalet in the Swiss Alps.

Or Chancellor and axeman in Chief George Gideon Oliver Osborne, who through the trust fund that owns a 15% stake in Daddy’s company is worth around £4million. Some of this goes on his personal love of skiing and wintersports. Nothing says posh like the names he’s chosen for his kids: Luke Benedict Osborne and Liberty Kate Osborne.

Whatever happens to the rest of us, these chaps are going to go on enjoying the great outdoors, horsey fun and hitting the alpine slopes, while the rest of us are forced to live with the miserable consequences of their cuts.

Cameron’s speech predictably enough made lots of noise about “the crisis is much worse than we thought”, “we’re going to have to cut more than ever” etc. etc. Translation: we’re in power now so we’ll say all the things we tried to hide from you during the election campaign.

Clegg takes an afternoon stroll. WHILE YOU'RE AT WORK.

In fact what all this chat about the way of life means is a warning from our right wing government. They are using this crisis as an opportunity to push through things we would never accept in normal times. It’ll start with cuts and job losses, then move on to attacking and dismantling the NHS and privatising the post office. The ConDems have a clear, classic, neoliberal agenda for transforming the UK into a place where what remains of our public services are gone and we’re forced to slave for basic survival.

They want to sneak this all through while we’re still in shock, convincing us that there’s no choice. But they are making a choice: a political choice to smash up the services that keep the poorest in our society going. It’s time to get active to stop them.

Tory Chancellor George Osborne lets the capitalists know where he stands

Today was the announcement of the first round of cuts by the UK government, with £6 and a quarter billion coming out of public spending. It’s been a busy day for SSY, as we took direct action at several points throughout the day to oppose the ConDem savagery. But first, let’s have a look at what’s been announced.

Posh boy Chancellor George Osborne, and his Lib Dem henchman, the former senior banker at JP Morgan and Barclays, and current Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Laws, were as chummy as the two rich pals they are announcing the cuts.

There’s lots of attempts to buy people off with headline grabbing measures like removing chauffeur driven limos for ministers (although even then they can still get one if needed for “security.”) But in reality things like this will be a drop in the ocean of the cuts announced today, which themselves are just the first taste of the brutal axe that the ConDems plan to take to public services, wages and benefits.

One of the biggest pieces of news is that child trust funds are to be scrapped. This was a scheme that gave all children born after 2002 an account with £250 in it to be saved and invested, that belongs to the child and can’t be touched until they turn 18. The idea behind it being that it gave an opportunity to people from lower income families to have a little bit of the advantage that rich kids have when they go off to uni or want to buy a house etc. It’s being phased out and scrapped entirely in January. No doubt private school boys like Cameron or Clegg won’t be that bothered, having plenty of Daddy’s money to back them up.

The PCS union for civil servants has condemned the proposed freeze on recruiting more people to work in the civil service. PCS members have been forced to repeatedly strike already against the huge attacks they’ve faced from Labour, and now their jobs are set to get even harder. The union has agreed to mount a major national campaign against the cuts, arguing that the money can be found from other sources, like making the rich pay their fair share of tax. General Secretary Mark Serwotka said:

“We have serious concerns about the staff in many government agencies who will have read in the media at the weekend that their jobs could be at risk, but have been given little information since.

“We do not accept that huge spending cuts are necessary or desirable, and we do not believe it is credible for the government to say it can protect public sector jobs and services while taking the axe to departments in this way.

“A recruitment freeze now, when tens of thousands of civil service posts have been cut in the last few years, will further add to workloads and put at risk the services our members provide to the public. We would welcome the opportunity for a full and honest debate about the public sector and its role in the economy, but the government appears intent on short-circuiting that by cutting first and asking questions later.”

In further attempts to make what they were up to look not that bad, the ConDems also have pledged not to cut “frontline services” in this round, for example by leaving out schools. However, for education this means that the cuts have hit hardest in further education. There’s going to be 10,000 fewer places at unis available this year than was previously planned, at a time when demand has skyrocketed by 16.5%. It’s going to get harder for young people to get into education, increasing the numbers forced to survive on benefits. Overall £200 million is coming out of higher education.

Where the ConDems send you with your UCAS form

Something that will hit the most vulnerable people in society the hardest is the £1.2 billion cut to local government grants. This is politically helpful for the ConDems, because local councils will be the ones that have to make the choices about which services that people depend on will be axed. But the people who depend most on the services provided by local councils are overwhelmingly the poorest and most vulnerable.

They’re also axing the future jobs fund, which helps people on job seekers get a job for six months on the minimum wage. It’s far from perfect, and can force people into a pretty crap job compared to what they could be doing, but it is at least the minimum wage. What will come next will be workfare – forcing the unemployed to work for their pathetic dole money, at far below the minimum wage. In other words, slavery.

There’s other stuff too, such as the decision to seriously delay the building of a major centre for medical scientific research in London. We’ll update you with more info as it becomes clearer.

In Scotland, the actual cuts are deferred until next year. That doesn’t mean we’ve escaped unscathed though. The Scottish budget is losing £332 million, but it will be next year’s budget that the Scottish Parliament will be asked to axe, because this year’s has been set already. If the SNP Scottish Government was serious about standing up to cuts, they’d say they intend to resist this reduction, but we won’t hold our breath. The need to elect socialists to the Scottish Parliament next year has never been greater, to try and push for defiance of cuts imposed by a UK government that wasn’t elected in Scotland.

The ConDem government is composed of the parties that came 3rd and 4th in the last election. They have absolutely no mandate to attack the poorest Scots in this way. That was the message that SSY and SSP members took to the streets to spread today. We’ve already reported about our successful banner drop this morning, that was seen by thousands of rush hour commuters, and drew a lot of appreciative honks from drivers.

Later in the day, SSP Red Shirts took direct action to show our anger that an unelected government feels it has the right to ruin Scotland. We were inspired by the actions of the poor and working class in Thailand, who have faced the full force of the military as they demand the resignation of an unelected government. We decided to do the same in Glasgow.

SSP Red Shirts outside Robert Brown's office

Unfortunately, the only real public premises of either of the ConDem parties in the city centre is the constituency office of Lib Dem MSP Robert Brown. While he isn’t personally part of the UK government, he is a public representative of a party that is propping up the Tories. Without Lib Dem support the Tories wouldn’t be in a position to take power, and we think that all Lib Dems shouldn’t be allowed to forget their complicity in government butchery.

SSP organiser Richie Venton, who helped make the protest happen, said:

“In faraway Thailand an unelected dictator, educated at Eton school for the very rich and privileged, is facing determined opposition from the urban and rural poor, organised as the Red Shirts movement.

Meanwhile, an Eton-educated Tory Prime Minister who was rejected by 85% of Scottish voters is out to rule and ruin Scotland without a mandate.

Cameron plans to commit carnage against public sector jobs, workers’ pay and pensions, and the vital local public services they provide. He is only able to launch this Tory butchery because of Lib Dem treachery.

The Lib Dems posed as an anti-cuts party during the general election and conned a minority in Scotland into voting for them; now they have formed the Twin Tory government that will cut taxes on the rich and big Corporations, whilst slashing up to 100,000 Scottish jobs.

The Scottish Socialist Party is determined to unite workers and communities to resist, defy and defeat these cuts. At noon, the SSP Red Shirts marched into the offices of Glasgow Lib Dem MSP Robert Brown to conduct a polite, peaceful dialogue with him, putting him on the spot about the treacherous role of the Lib Dems in propping up the vicious Tory government.”

Robert vs Red Shirts

To be fair to Robert, he took the whole thing mostly in good humour, although when we told him we were the Red Shirts his crack that we’d “get shot” rang a bit hollow considering the Lib Dems, through their membership of the international Liberal Alliance, support the violent, pro-monarchy, anti-democratic Yellow Shirts in Thailand. He also at one point got into a bit of fairly heated debate with James N, telling the SSP’s Glasgow Central candidate to “shut up.”

Apart from the cuts, and our refusal to accept his assertion that the Lib Dems would make sure they were “fair” when they refuse to tax the rich, and make the poor pay the cost, we also took up a few other issues. We demanded he explain why the Lib Dems, who won so many votes by pretending to be against nuclear weapons, are now part of a government that will replace Trident and build new nuclear power stations.

And we also challenged him on the Lib Dem claim to have ended the detention of the children of asylum seekers, just after Nick Clegg and Liberal ministers stood by and allowed Sehar, and her baby Wania, Shabaz to be deported back to Pakistan on Saturday, where they face violence and ostracism. Whatever happens to them there is on the hands of the ConDem government. Robert claimed the government was “making progress” on the issue, but the progress only seems to be families progressing down the motorway in the back of a van to incarceration in Yarl’s Wood instead of Dungavel. He might call it progress, but to us a baby in a private prison is still unacceptable, whether the prison is in Scotland or England.

Once we’ve edited them we’ll update the article with the video highlights of our exchange, so keep checking back. As you’ll see, we remained respectful and peaceful, and left without having disrupted his day’s work too much.

In the big picture, the cuts today were carefully handled by the ConDems. The politics behind today’s announcement was all aimed at proving to the rich and the international markets that they have a government in Britain that is unequivocally on their side. Their plan clearly was to try and make a small amount of their overall planned cuts today, trying to minimise it to the public while showing their bosses and colleagues in the financial elite that they’re serious about making the poor pay for the rich’s mistakes.

Expect as the months go on for them to slowly bleed us with cut after cut, until we’re faced with hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs, benefits and services. For us, today’s actions were only a beginning to a rolling programme of resistance. The ConDems are desperate to make people believe there is no alternative to making us pay for a crisis we didn’t create. But there is. The huge wealth of the banks and the super rich is what should be used, not money taken from the poorest and most vulnerable. That’s the message we’ll be taking again and again to the streets and picket lines. One of the biggest next steps will be building action against the emergency budget, due to be announced on June 22nd. Watch this space!

The resistance to today’s announcement of £6 billion worth of cuts in the public sector by the new ConDem government got off to an early start today, with SSY members in Glasgow storming a multi-storey car park at a busy city centre junction for a rush-hour banner drop.

The SSP red shirts will be engaging to anti-cuts actions throughout the day – watch this space!

Tory Chancellor George Osbourne is coming to get you

It’s started: finally secure in their position of power, the Tories, with the support of the sell out Lib Dems, have declared war on the working class.

Today, the government announced it will hold an emergency budget on June 22nd. But, in an attempt to pre-empt the fightback, the ConDems are to announce £6 billion of public spending cuts next Monday.

We’re about to face cuts unlike anything  Britain has seen in modern history. Services that working class people depend on are going to be decimated.

-As a conservative estimate, 750, 000 public sector workers are likely to lose their jobs. Those still in work will face wage freezes and cuts.

-The government wants to make us all work longer, with the retirement age increased to 66 by 2016 for men and 2020 for women. This will hit poorer people far harder than the more well off, because studies have shown again and again that the working class have shorter life expectancies due to their living conditions under capitalism. Pensions for people who work in the public sector are also going to be shifted from a guaranteed amount to instead being gambled on the stock market, and what you get depends on how the bet goes.

-The most regressive taxes, which hit the working class hardest and leave the rich unscathed, are also to go up. Many predict that VAT will go up to 20%, making the essentials of life much more expensive in the shops. If you remember the Tories harping on about the “jobs tax” in the election, here’s what they’ve actually done in power: your boss won’t have to pay any extra contribution to your National Insurance, but you still will have it taken out of your pay!

They’ve also announced the establishment of an ‘Office of Budget Responsibility.’ In the past, the government has made forecasts of how much the economy will grow, and written the budget on that basis. Now, this new unelected committee of businessmen and “experts” will make the forecasts. The Chancellor will then have to write the budget based on their recommendations or account for why they haven’t done.

One of the first acts of Gordon Brown when he became Chancellor under Tony Blair in 1997 was to give the Bank of England the power to set interest rates, removing economic control from the elected government and putting it in the hands of unelected bankers. Thirteen years later, one of the first acts of the ConDem government has been to give another undemocratic committee huge power over the economic policy of the UK, and if we don’t like what we say we can’t vote them out. There’s also no guarantee that these “experts” will get their forecasts right: few capitalists saw that an economy based on debt and fictional accounting was about to collapse (unlike quite a few socialist economists.)

On June 22nd this battered old case will contain an economic SNUKE aimed at you

This is nothing short of a declaration of war by the ConDems. We always expected it of the Tories, but sadly the Lib Dems are also the ones making it possible. If you voted Lib Dem in the last election in the hope of getting a leftish alternative, then we’re sorry, but you got conned. They’ve abandoned the policies that made them popular in the campaign to get a slice of power.

The real question as we come under attack is this: what are we going to do about it? Do we sit back and take it, or do we stand up and fight? Many people aren’t happy about the cuts, but think there isn’t any choice but to make them to save the economy. This is a lie that has been peddled to us by the capitalists who want to take our money.

Immediate measures the government could take as an alternative to cuts include cancelling the illegal Trident nuclear weapons programme, which alone would save an amazing £130 billion. We should also immediately pull all British troops out of Afghanistan, saving both billions of pounds and thousands of lives.

Beyond this, we could stop the rich from being able to avoid paying their fair share of tax by increasing fairer taxes like corporation tax and cracking down on the loopholes that let them move their cash abroad. But more importantly, we’ve all given our money through taxes towards the billions that were used to bail out the banks. It’s time we had a government that took control of the hugely wealthy banks and financial institutions. Instead of that money sitting in accounts of the super rich, it could be used to transform our economy, moving us away from a carbon based economy that destroys the climate, building homes for the thousands that need them, and providing world class public services, for starters.

What should we do to put this people’s agenda on the table? We need anti-cuts committees in every city in Scotland. We need to have mass actions against the emergency budget on June 22nd, and next Monday as well if possible. And, crucially, we need to be spreading the message to everyone that there is an alternative to the ConDem war on the working class.

Tomorrow night if you’re in Glasgow the Scottish Socialist Party is holding a meeting to discuss how we begin our counter attack. Come along and help by giving your views. It’s at 7.30, in the Piper Bar on the corner of George Square.

Fucken AWESOME banners mate, Fucken AWESOME.

Awritey mah wee chummos! Yur auld pal Lydia here, joost back fae Edinburger again. This time though, ah wisnae houndin’ the auld SDL, bit ah wis greetin’ mah chum best David Wankeron. Welcomin’ ‘um tae bonnie wee Scotland, cause like, presumably like, he’s nevur been here ur anyhin. Tae be fair ‘es prolly seen pichurs aye the highlands n aw that it ‘es posh Uni. Bit ‘es nevur seen us common folks before, so it wis prolly a bit ay a shocker fur ‘um like. Shame, eh? NAW.

Anywey. So whit actually happened like, wis we goat telt last night thit big DivCam the Sham would be in Scotland fur a wham-bam wi big Lecko Salmond. So we quickly organised and goat folk up tae Edinburger the next mornin’.

When we goat there, thur wis only a sparse group ‘ay people ootside the Scottish Parliament, an a hink they wur joost there tae gee Cam the auld eyeballin’. So we gets wur gear oot, wur obviously fucken amazin’ banners an aw that. An we situates wirsels it the side door ay the parliament, waiting fur good auld shiny face tae make an appearance.

Bit ‘eh disnae. Bit we staun there anywey, we shout ‘n’ chant. Joost the usual banter aboot tellin’ the Tory mob tae fuck off an that. Thur wis a real energy, ye know? People aw there fur the same cause n aw that. Aw these enthusiastic peopo who aw want tae batter David Cameron’s fucken heid in. Ahh it wis brilliant. But anywey, it wis really good an aw that, bit we started tae get a wee bit suspecious ken, cause like, DivCam wisnea makin’ an appearance, so we mosied oan doon tae the front entrance tae make sure the slimey bastard didny gee us the slip like.

Roon ‘it the front, it wis strange, like cause there wis a wee walkway set up fur his majesty an that, bit like eh polis would let a pansy Eton scum boey walk through a crowd ‘ay ragin’ Scottish peope who didny vote fur the cunt! It was aw so suspicious, ken, We wur shoutin’ loud enough fur fuckin’ Westminster tae hear us, so ahm no surprised thit they decided no tae ship the gold in through the front. So eventually, we gets aw the info. It aw comes oot.

Roon 'eh side ay the Parliament buildens.

Turns oot thit the sly basturts huv shipped ‘um in through the fucken bat cave doonstairs! An undergroon car park, ken! (Good tae know wur taxes are bein spent fucken wisely like!) An then they smuggled ‘um back oot! An let me tell ye, we wur pissed off thit we didny get tae scream in ‘es mush, but we wur well chuffed thit ‘e wis too much ay a fucken cowardly scumbag basturd thit ‘e couldny even face the fucken peopo ‘e wis tryin’ tae extend a fucken olive branch tae, like. Aye fucken right. Wur no gonnae sit an let that cunt make oot like wur fucken best pals wi the wanker. Ahm no ‘ed fucken pal. Ah HATE ‘um! AH HATE CAMERON!

Anywey, so we kinna joost started tae go hame, an we goat a wee bit doon ‘eh road n’ somecunt phones us an gees us the lowdoon thit the Toff Wank is in St Andrew’s hoose. So we dis a u-turn n sannies it up tae St Andrew’s hoose. (Another fucken grande waste ay tax money) an whin we get there, this big disaster kinna happened. See, we goat split up. Some ay us goat there furst an whin mah group goat there, aw we coul see wis the others aw fucken fenced in in this tiny kettoh. Ah wis lit “Aw naw man, geis peace,”

So the polis comes slimin’ up tae us an wis aw lit “Ye need tae go ower there, mate.”

An we wur lit. “Naw.”

An they wur lit “Bit we’ll gee yeese the heids up if ‘eh comes!”

An we wur lit “Dae we look lit fannies tae you? Naw, mate. Take yur leave,”

So the banter goes oan fur a wee bit, but they don’t manage tae gets us penned up lit wur pals. So we joost wait aboot fur um, annoyin’ the polis in a kinna casual wey like. These two mad poshos wur pure staunin’ lookin’ it us lit we wur aliens. Well, obviously we wur tae thame cause we didny huve suits, briefcases n a look oan our faces lit a duig hud shat in wur shoes.

Fucken ragin' an that.

So the big momento arrives. It wis glorious mah chummos. He comes oot wey a pure smug look on his gleamin’ mush. An we wur joost pure lit “SCUM SCUMS SCUM! YA BASS!” An ‘es wee ginger LibDem gimp nearly started greetin’ and pure dived in the motor. DivCam’s smiled kinna dripped aff lit cauld tamatae soup. We hailed ‘um oot wi wur chants an somecunt threw an egg which burst aw oor (no ‘es puss unfortunately) the motor windae as it sped the fuck ootae poor-land.

Joost goes tae show ye thit DivCam couldny gee two fucks aboot us an nevur fucken will. Cause fur a start ‘es too fucken scared tae own up tae the fucken crimes the Tories committed tae us in the past. ‘E cannae face us an ‘e fucken proved it the day wi ‘es smugglin’ in an oot ay places wi fucking high-vis wanker protection.

Well, as socialists are now groaning and rolling up their sleeves for years of struggle as the Tories and the Liberals prepare to attack living standards and services, and with Labour and the SNP mouthing opposition but doing nothing to stop them (and passing them on through local parliaments and councils), there is another aspect which adds to the farce which is the current state of politics and society in this country.

That is, the wishes of the population, including which type of coalition government, which type of electoral system, and which type of policies people want to see have barely had a look-in in our ‘democracy’ since our election in an already crap electoral system. Rather, we all seem to be slaves to the will of this omniscient presence called ‘the market’.

Now I am no economist, but the way the political elites and journalists have been discussing the needs of ‘the market’ in terms of the desirable form of government (i.e. a Tory-Liberal coalition) that needed to come from this election, makes our financial system sound like some kind of all-powerful supernatural presence. Indeed, so encapsulating and overwhelming is ‘the market’, that we have no choice but to bow down and prostrate ourselves to its will, which right now is that ‘it’ (or he or she, who knows?) wants a strong government to push through brutal cuts. Anyone that thinks otherwise just isn’t a properly trained economist, like all those ones who astutely spotted the financial crisis way before if happened (whoops!) and pushed the deregulation of the financial markets which led to the crisis in the first place.

Thus, ‘the market’ demanded a strong coalition government that could ‘tackle the deficit’ i.e. make the poor pay for capitalism’s crisis, rather than city financiers losing money because shares may go down a little due to uncertainty over the next government. However, hearing the coverage of the hung parliament, you’d have thought we’d all be cast back into the stone age if the desired Tory-Liberal coalition wasn’t agreed sharpish, as you can see in this BBC coverage here.

This is just another reminder of why capitalism, most of all deregulated finance capitalism, can fuck off as far as I’m concerned. The market is not our god, and its servants -- Labour, Tories, Liberals and the SNP -- are not our rulers. Their attempts to make us pay for the current crisis in capitalism may give them a sharp wake-up call on that count.

If humanity is to have a future, we need real participatory democracy, and for political and economic power to be in the hands of the population, not ‘the market’, ‘the city’, or any other representations of the shitty, ailing capitalist system that politicians are desperately trying to prop up. In other words, we need socialism.

Rant over. For now.

After 13 years out of Government -- the bastards are back. And in the ironies or ironies, it was with the help of Guardian readers; the Tories are in power thanks to a leg up from the Lib Dems, millions of people who voted for the abolition of Trident and other progressive policies will now know that their votes have in fact counted towards keeping an Eton schoolboy in office.

David Cameron has risen from riches to riches, in a fairytale story of triumphing by paying to bypass any kind of small adversity. With only a ragband crew of the Murdoch press, billionaire tax exiles and 200 years of ingrained privilege, the Tories have been able to scrape back into power in coalition with people called Tarquin who wear sandals and like Tibet.

Liberal Democrat Federal Council meets to discuss coalition plans

SSY is already negotiating it’s own constitutional solution to the crisis, by proposing a land swap -- England shall receive Dumfries, Clydesdale and Tweedale (the only Scottish constituency to vote in a Tory) and in exchange Scotland will offer political asylum to the North of England.

On a more serious note, this development will put the national question back to the top of the agenda in Scotland. After only voting in one Tory MP, Scotland is again run by a Tory prime minister -- the Liberal support does not increase the legitimacy of the Government by much, and very few Liberal voters in Scotland will back what the Lib Dems have done. The devolved Scottish Parliament will not be able to stop the cuts -- Westminster decide the budget, and the Tories planned budget cuts will disproportionately hammer Scotland due to the higher % of public sector workers -- itself a product of de-industrialisation under Thatcher.

Only Independence and Socialism will give Scotland the democracy it’s citizens deserve and the protection against poverty, cuts, low pay, and unemployment the next Tory/Liberal Government will bring. The SSY is the only group of young Socialists in Scotland which has fought consistently since our founding 10 years ago for independence as a necessary part of the struggle for Socialism in Scotland.

The You Tube clip below of William Wallace being tortured by an evil unionist bastard wearing a Santa hat accurately depicts SSY’s strongly held feelings on the issue of Tory rule of Scotland.

Well he’s finally done it, like a bullied teenager forced into taking weed by his peers, Gordon Brown has bottled it and given into pressure. He has resigned after spending only 3 years in the job he has lusted after for practically his entire political career. After taking Labour to it’s worst result since 1983, Brown has taken the hint and left No 10.

Fuck it, I don't care anymore. You're all FUCKING BIGOTS.

A year ago, the Tories would have been ecstatic if Brown had stepped down -- now they’re running about like headless chickens, terrified that the one major stumbling block between a Lib-Lab coalition has been removed. Despite the Lib Dems being closer to the Labour party in the political views of their electorate and MP’s, it was clear that there was no way Nick Clegg was going to prop up a Labour PM as popular as the bastard offspring of Myra Hindley and Saddam Hussein.  Brown was despised in Middle England due to his being Scottish public relations difficulties.

Now with Brown out the way, a deal between the Lib Dems and Labour -- while not ideal -- is a lot more credible. There’s the obvious attack that’s going to come from the Tories and their allies about one unelected PM being replaced with another, but ultimately it’s the politicians who make the decisions, like it or lump it. And a youthful Blairite PM like David Miliband might not be too unpopular in the Home Counties marginals Labour need to retake in the future.

The biggest stumbling block left after Brown’s departure now though is the arithmetic. Despite taking 52% of the popular vote across the UK, Labour and the Lib Dems together do not have over half the seats. In order to form a stable Government, they would need to put together support from an eclectic mix of Democratic Unionists, Irish, Welsh and Scottish Nationalists.

The SDLP have already said their preference is for a Lib Lab pact, and the SNP have been calling for the Lib Dems to explore alternatives to an alliance with the Tories correctly saying that their vote would be badly damaged if they enforced a Tory Government on Scotland. Despite the SNP’s obvious rivalry with Labour it’s leadership know the Scottish people will judge them very harshly if they did anything to stop Labour from keeping the Tories out.

While the Tories Unionist allies are non-existent, the Democratic Unionists do have 8 MP’s in Northern Ireland who could be potential kingmakers in a coalition. Whilst they have officially said they are not opposed in principle to a Lib Lab pact, they are clearly on the right of the political spectrum and would fit more comfortably with the Conservatives.The arithmetic still does not add up though. A Lab-Lib-SDLP pact would not have a majority and neither would a Tory-DUP pact. The SNP, Plaid Cymru, Alliance and Green MP’s would hold real power over decisions.

There’s another issue which makes an elaborate coalition unstable -- English Nationalist resentment. While the Tories may have taken only 36% across the UK, in England they have a clear lead of 40% to Labour’s 28%. If a Government dependent on Scottish Labour, Scottish Liberal and other Nationalist MP’s from within the UK enact cuts on English public services you can bet the Tories, UKIP and BNP will attack them for enforcing a dictatorship on the English electorate.

Lets hope the SNP negotiate to ensure these scenes are never repeated again.

There’s already been discontent brewing south of the border on the issue of Labour’s legitimacy to govern England -- in 2005 Labour got less votes than the Tories in England for example, but more seats. This is alongside the West Lothian question where Scottish MP’s can vote on decisions that only affect England, and the Barnett formula where Scots receive more funding per head in public services than their English counterparts.

A lot of these concerns are pish -- 52% of English voters did support the Liberals and Labour, and the Barnett formula does not take into account Scotland’s massive subsidies to Westminster in Oil money. But the principle would remain -- Labour and the Lib Dem’s would rely on Scottish , Irish and Welsh MP’s to govern. Any negotiations to spare cuts from their respective parts of the UK would be attacked in the Tory press as robbing from England.

This would be a difficult situation for a Government in normal circumstances, but this is a Government that needs to enact brutal public service cuts the likes of which have not been seen in generations. When the schools, hospitals, and jobs start to go you can bet MP’s in marginal seats will feel the pressure to defy the whip to save their own skins. A lost by-election or two could scupper the entire Government’s spending plans. This is not a stable environment to make the UK a profitable place for capitalism again.

That’s why the Tories (and probably the markets too) are desperate to keep the Lib Dems in a pact with them. They are the most stable offer on the table, with both parties having a clear majority when put together -- and enough breathing space in case any MP’s rebel. But right now it appears the Lib Dems know they won’t get this chance again to hold so much power, and are demanding a voting system that takes their support into account. That could mean the end forever for single party Tory rule, and it’s whether or not that’s an acceptable price to pay for one stable Government that the Tories are mulling over just now.

Armando Iannucci already described in detail what a hung parliament might be like in 1997,

Since 2001 the BNP have made steady inroads into British politics, gradually building up a significant base in local councils, and expanding slowly but surely into other arenas – winning a seat on the Greater London Assembly and their highpoint last year, winning 2 seats in the European Parliament. It’s almost been a grudging acceptance by some people on the Left that the BNP’s growth could at best only be slowed in the short term, due to their high profile and the constant anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim sentiment in the British press. So it’s not surprising a lot of folk looked with dread to what was going to happen in Barking and Dagenham, the BNP’s stronghold.

It’s where the BNP’s leader Nick Griffin was standing against New Labour hack Margaret Hodge – who gave the BNP ammunition with her comments on housing – and it’s also where the BNP were the official opposition on the council. They had a real chance of both taking Hodge’s seat and taking control of the council – the BNP were throwing the kitchen sink at Barking, and telling their members and supporters they were on the verge of a breakthrough.

Instead they were annihilated – to the surprise of BNP supporters and antifascists alike. They lost all their council seats in Barking and Dagenham – Labour now hold all 51 council seats. Griffin’s vote was also down from 2005. He came nowhere close to challenging Hodge, and finished third behind the Tories. In his speech conceding defeat, Griffin said that they had lost the battle for Barking, and that the area was “colonised”

The BNP’s misfortunes weren’t limited to Barking and Dagenham – they lost councillors all across the country, and are down from 45 councillors to 19 (though English council elections don’t happen all at once, they have other councillors who weren’t up for election).

This result might seem surprising given the BNP got their best result, in terms of votes a couple of nights ago – over half a million. But we don’t know how much of this increase is due to the BNP’s ability to field many more candidates than they were able to in 2005. For example the BNP vote in Scotland in 2005 was only 1,590 but jumped up to almost 9000. On the face of it this looks like a fantastic boost for them, but in reality it is largely due to being able to increase the number of seats they can stand in. They only stood in 2 in 2005 (Glasgow Central and Glasgow North East), in 2010 they stood in 13.

The only direct comparison we can make then, is the vote in Glasgow Central and Glasgow North East – and in both seats, the BNP vote was down from 2005. It’s particularly surprising in the North East, where there’s a lot of concern about immigration and asylum seekers and the BNP nearly held on to their deposit in the by-election last year.

These results couldn’t come at a worse time for Griffin, who has already had to deal with internal difficulties in the BNP – like Mark Collet allegedly trying to kill him, mutiny in the Scottish BNP, their website owner walking off, as well as other discontent around Jim Dowson’s practical ownership of the party. The BNP’s electoral meltdown will inflame the anti-Griffin opposition in the BNP, who may now feel that Griffin’s holocaust denying past is baggage that the BNP can no longer carry, and a new leader more in line with the image of the “new” BNP must be found.

The smarter BNP activists will be asking why their vote collapsed. The reality is that across the UK people who were willing to vote BNP as a protest vote in elections were Labour were certain to win will no longer do so under threat of a Tory Government. From Glasgow North East, to Stoke, to Barking, traditional Labour areas are prepared to hold their nose and vote for Labour to defy the Tories.

Setbacks for the BNP of course aren’t solely attributable to the threat of a Tory Government – it’s likely that thousands of voters would have gone to the polls to vote in fear of what a BNP council would look like, and would have probably chosen Labour as the far lesser evil.

The setbacks for the BNP shouldn’t make us complacent though – the BNP’s ideas still have an an echo among hundreds of thousands of people, and relying on a Tory Government to scare people into voting Labour to keep the BNP out is no long term strategy. If people won’t cast protest votes for the BNP out of fear of the Tories, they won’t cast protest votes for the Left or the Greens. If Labour don’t stand up to the Tories the BNP could posture themselves as the real party against cuts, for British Jobs for British Workers etc.

This shouldn’t mean we don’t celebrate though – it’s squeaky bum time for Griffin and co, whose seats in the European Parliament now look a lot more fragile than before. If the Tories do take power, they may do to the BNP what Thatcher did to the NF – steal their rhetoric on immigration, and steal their votes. And in Scotland they will have a very interesting time upholding “British” identity if the union foists upon us a Tory Government we didn’t vote for.

Princess Murdoch

The Sun’s front page today (above) is a the final showcase they have to try and desperately push for a Tory government.

Leftfield has said consistently that the best thing we can hope for out of this election is a hung parliament. Nobody knows for sure how tonight is going to turn out. A strong Tory government (which is still possible) or a Labour majority (which looks really unlikely at this point) both would result in a strong government for the capitalist class.

A strong government elected today means that before too long we can expect a massive attack from the people in power, starting tomorrow. Just look at Greece: the people there elected a “Socialist” government in disgust at the economic crisis. Now that same government is pushing through an unprecedented assault that threatens the survival of the Greek working class.

The good news is that the opinion polls are all pointing towards a hung parliament, and a period of uncertainty and indecision as to who’s in charge. The only big party right now that looks like it could deliver a government with enough seats to push through cuts, new anti union laws and sackings is the Tories, and the Murdoch papers are trying to give them one last push.

Even though the other big two parties are no better, it is a testament to the class consciousness of normal people that a year ago the Tories had a huge poll lead, but a the day drew near they realised they didn’t want an Eton educated wanker in government. Despite the full weight of the right wing propaganda machine behind him, David Cameron hasn’t been able to get clearly ahead. Which is good.

That doesn’t mean that we should be fighting to keep a Labour government either. They’ve promised cuts “deeper than Thatcher”, as everyone reading this blog must know by now. The Lib Dems also want to cut, and have also committed to bring in new laws that would stop workers being able to strike against those cuts. More importantly, the Lib Dems want into power, and will prop up whichever party looks like they can put Liberals in ministerial limos.

The key thing to understand is that the UK, like most of Europe in the world, is in huge debt, because the state used our money to cover the losses made by ultra rich bankers betting on the stock market. This means that the government can’t afford the cost of running the country. Their solution to this crisis is to make you and me pay. None of the three parties that could be part of the next government can possibly conceive of an alternative.

Hung parliament: Best of bad options

But there is one. Make the ultra rich, whose wealth jumped again last year, pay their fair share in tax, and end tax evasion. Cancel the incredibly expensive plans to renew Britain’s weapons of mass destruction, and bring British troops home from Afghanistan. But most importantly, tell the banks we want our money back. The banks that were bailed out with our money have more than enough cash. If we take them into public ownership, and use those vast reserves of money to do actually useful stuff, like transforming the UK energy economy to try and prevent climate change for example, it’ll create jobs and do a hell of a lot more good than going towards bonuses for millionaire executives.

If you live in one of these places, you can vote today for someone who stands up for this alternative. but today is only the beginning. Over the next few months we need to build up a ferocious resistance movement to the world of shit that the next government is going to try and plunge us into. We can stop the cuts, and we can put an alternative on the agenda. The weaker the next government is the better for us, but whatever happens tonight it’s going to take a hell of a lot of people power. So today, we recommend that where you can you vote for a socialist candidate standing against the cuts. And from today, get involved in building up a fightback to whoever forms the next government.

If you think it can’t be done, just check out some of the stuff we’ve been covering in Greece over the last few days.

David Cameron’s reaction on learning he won’t get a majority government: