This election, we are told, is an election of ‘change’. All parties want it. After thirteen years of New Labour, a change of Government seems likely. But will anything actually change? Yesterday, David Miliband in the Daily Telegraph said that the next parliament would see more New Labour MPs elected than in 1997. The Conservatives’ own candidates are increasingly being exposed as homophobic, with a significant number drawn from the newly unemployed class some refer to as  ’bankers’ (hold your tongue to say that one). The Liberals, after eighty years of doing nothing except damaging the climate through the hot gas they expel at regular intervals, think that by putting up a front-man who SSY recently exposed as a horsefly in disguise as a human, they may actually trick the electorate into thinking they are the REAL party of ‘change’.

Gordon Brown goes for 'honesty is best' policy when he tells another voter what he thinks of her.

Let us consider seriously the past thirteen years of New Labour: it is easy to take the piss, but some sobering thoughts before you vote are worth considering.

New Labour’s policies produced the rise of the ‘Welfare Benefit Class’. Harder to say than simply ‘the Poor’, this group has grown under New Labour, and remain below the poverty line on a multitude of ‘benefits’ which are so low, those on them are kept in poverty but unable to find a job which pays better than the benefits they are on.

New Labour have ceased to be the party of the working class. Instead, they are content to see people remain in poverty on benefits, and allow Capitalists and free-marketeers to continue their excellent job of exploiting us all.

During the same time as the unemployed and low-waged were kept down with measly benefits, the Rich were given the power to outsource their jobs around the world, use zero hour contracts to import cheap labour and cheat those workers out of all rights and benefits, paying less than the minimum wage.

Council house sell-offs continued, bankers speculated on future loses, and all this time the Government borrowed against our future with further privatisation and PFI projects, part-sell offs of Air traffic Control, attempts to privatise Royal Mail and demands to tender all government contracts from in-house, government employees to private companies in the name of ‘value for money’. These private companies, having underestimated their costs to win the job, then employed the same employees but on lower wages, poorer conditions and fewer hours to do the same job.

The minimum wage was introduced, but at such a ridiculously low level it was impossible to make ends meet with just one 40-hour a week job. And those under 22 didn’t even qualify, because their labour, was somehow not as valuable. And all the time, the number of working class people forced to survive on benefit handouts increased. Despite the fact that overwhelmingly they want a decent job and want to work. But it was easier to deal with the unemployed, those in poverty and those on low wages with tax credits than actually address the core problem: the working conditions and rights of the workers of the country, and provide jobs.

No matter how hard people work, how many jobs they get, under this system poverty and inequality will continue. And with the increasing number on benefits all the parties are now telling us that the ‘Poor’, or commonly, ‘benefit scroungers’ (easier to say for Tories than tell us who they are), don’t work hard enough and must be forced to get off benefits. Incapacity allowance, jobseeker’s allowance and other benefits are only for the ‘genuine’. The Rich, they say, have earned their wealth. (Interestingly, Paris Hilton is never used as a shining example of the ‘meritocracy’ in which we are supposed to live.) This is the country which New Labour has created.

One of the impacts of Tory media policy if they win.

Understandably for these reasons, and many others, people may be thinking as they cast their vote “anyone but New Labour”. With record youth unemployment, a disgraceful approach to human rights, civil liberties and a racist immigration policy makes this obvious. But the Conservatives or the LibDems aren’t the solution. Just remember: in the 1980s David Cameron looked at the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher, and he saw mass unemployment, miners’ striking, racial tension, widespread privatisation, social unrest, anti-trade union laws, Section 28, the rich getting richer at the expense of the poorest in society, and thought ”This is my Party; I belong here.” Today, after a month of General Election campaigning, this is what David Cameron’s idea of ”change” boils down to, despite claims he’s just like us. The Conservative Party has not changed one bit. The Liberal Democrats’ idea of ”change” is no different: means-testing of universal benefits, widespread public service cuts, reneging on scraping tuition fees, and the continuation of a Trident-equivalent nuclear deterrent.

We are told than in this election, that ‘change’ is coming. With the danger of a hung parliament, if we vote LibDem, we get Labour. Or if we vote LibDem, we get Tory. Before you cast your vote, remember this: New Labour were Thatcherites but more so. David Cameron and Nick Clegg will be New Labour but more so. It’s best to file all of this scum under “Tory”.

Vote Socialist on 6 May.

"Yes, yes, yes, this is all well and good but where's your cash?"

Greece is known throughout the world as the birthplace of democracy, the cradle of western art, science, literature, drama and philosophy. It’s a beautiful country, with a healthy and delicious cuisine. What does capitalism think of Greece? “Junk”.

Yesterday Greece’s credit rating was downgraded to “junk” status, meaning that international markets think the government will be unable to pay its huge debts to banks and capitalists. Greece has been denounced across Europe, especially in Germany, which is the Europe’s largest economy, and where the right wing press has campaigned against any bailout for the Greeks. The German equivalent of The Sun, Bild, ran with the headline ‘You Greeks are getting nothing from us.’ And German Chancellor Angela Merkel, while campaigning for her party in regional elections, took the opportunity to lecture Greece on saving money and monetary responsibility, sounding just like someone who you need to borrow money off to keep afloat, but who just can’t help being a dick about it.

But throughout the day there’s been an absolute panic in international financial institutions like the IMF or the European Central Bank, and their top people have put the screws on the German government to cough up to try and keep the crisis in Greece under control. They fear that if the capitalists don’t get their cash from Greece then they’ll start to panic about other countries with big debts as well. The head of the OECD called what was happening in Greece a “contagion”, going as far as to compare it to the ebola virus (!):

“It’s not a question of the danger of contagion; contagion has already happened. This is like Ebola. When you realise you have it you have to cut your leg off in order to survive. The crisis is threatening the stability of the financial system.”

The result of all this lobbying is that the EU is going to lend Greece some money to cover its debts, but the action wasn’t fast enough to prevent the credit rating of Spain being downgraded as well, leading to yet more panic among capitalists that they weren’t going to get paid. The Portuguese government has also announced it’s going to bring forward its plan to cut spending and attack workers to try and stave off crisis.

Merkel: "I'm not lending you 20 quid, or you'll never learn, blah blah blah."

What Greece and Spain are finding out is the cost of being members of the Euro. In similar situations in the past they would have reduced how much their currency is worth, making it cheaper to buy what they’re exporting. But as members of the Euro they can’t do that, because the value of the Euro is set for the whole of Europe, meaning their needs are swamped by the needs of the much bigger German economy.

The reason the German government has decided to give some bailout money to Greece is because the future of the Euro as a currency is potentially in doubt. The Greek debt has already got much worse while Germany dithered about what to do, and whatever the pro-capitalist Greek government wants to do they may well end up having no choice but to not pay some of their debts. At that point, they may have to seriously consider withdrawing from the Euro.

The solution that the IMF and European Central Bank want is predictable: Greek (and Spanish, Portuguese, Irish etc.) workers will have to get sacked, have their pay cut and face massive cuts in their basic services. The long term implications are likely to be huge unemployment and misery for the people of Greece.

All the mainstream media present this like it’s inevitable, and that Europe has no alternative. But that’s far from true. If European countries worked together they could easily take control of the massive wealth in European banks, and instead of causing misery for the people that elected them, use that cash to transform the economy and give people meaningful work.

The reason that isn’t happening is simple: across Europe the working class are too weak, and we’re easy targets for bullying by the rich. The government in Greece is in a weaker position because the Greek people are among the most organised and militant in Europe, so they face a serious threat if they go ahead with their attacks.When the EU “rescue” plan was announced, thousands of workers and youth massed on the street to attack the headquarters of the EU in Athens. They have another general strike planned for May 5th.

But they need our support. Across the whole of the EU, it’s time for socialists, trade unionists and other working class forces to get our act together. There’s absolutely no reason we should be facing this assault from the rich, who are responsible for this whole mess in the first place.

Greek protesters show us how it's done

Unfortunately in Britain it doesn’t look like the election will change much. The same people who downgraded Greece to junk status say they’re not too worried about Britain. Simon Hayes of Barclays Capital told the Guardian:

“We expect the next government to tighten policy by a little more than is currently projected. Given the broad consensus across the political parties about the need to reduce the public deficit, and the closeness of the main parties’ stated consolidation plans, we do not believe that the election outcome will materially change the broad outlook for public borrowing and debt.”

In other words, big business doesn’t care about the election, because they know whoever gets in they’ll win. The SSP does care about the election, we’re standing in 10 seats across Scotland. But the reason for that is we hope to use it as a springboard for building up mass working class resistance to the cuts and austerity that the next government is trying to force on us, like we’ve seen with the mass protests and general strikes in Greece. The need for a fight back has never been greater.

“The names Bond, James Bond. I’ll have a martini, sha -- fucks sake, how much? Er, actually Tiffany Broadchest, how does Wetherspoons sound?” -- unfortunately nobody is immune from the international recession, not even Britain’s most famous international secret agent 007; the new Bond movie has been indefinitely suspended, due to MGM’s inability to pay it’s debts. This is despite threatening a legal case against “007 fridges -- Licence to Chill”.

Many people on the Left won’t be upset to see Bond go, due to his massive disruption and annoyance of planned economies on the other side of the Iron Curtain for decades, his questionable use of expenses in casinos, his controversial shoot to kill policy and his poor line on 50/50 gender representation.

The Bond of the 21st century is much better in many respects now however -- in the last film, he helped take on the CIA, a military dictator, and an international evil syndicate -- QUANTUM- and stopped them from overthrowing the left-wing Government of Bolivia. The CIA turn to QUANTUM because they’ve been stuck in Iraq, and let Bolivia and Venezuela fall away “like Dominoes”. Fortunately for Morales James Bond manages to blow up his secret solar powered lair and leaves him to die in the desert -- btw, did we mention the bad guy does greenwashing? Yes, we can see you warming to 007 already.

Bond Villain Max Zorin guns down a predominantly unionised workforce

Even The Bond of old wasn’t too bad -- just look at all the massive international companies he fucked up, all because they wanted to start nuclear war/annihilate silicon valley with an earthquake generated flood/drop viral gas from space etc. We also can’t confirm if Goldfinger was a tax exile who funded the Tories “Are you thinking what were thinking?” posters in 2005, but we wouldn’t be surprised if they did.

Thats why I think the Left should be leading the call to save Bond. MGM who own the Bond series have announced the new film has been indefinitely postponed due to their massive debt, which is estimated to be almost £2.2 billion. Just think, the £100 billion that has been wasted on Trident could be spent on making James Bond films with sets the size of small countries.

Just picture 10,000 young people taken off the dole, dressed as ninjas abseiling down into Hampden stadium which has been modified to look like the inside of a volcano as part of a massive public works programme. Then our ninjas would carry out a staged battle with 15,000 SPECTRE operatives, considerably slashing the number of long term unemployed in Glasgow. I think we can all agree that is a better future for our young people than living on benefits, or working in a call centre.

Scrap Trident, Build Volcano bases and Rockets.

Max Zorin, one of the many neo-liberal Thatcherites Bond has killed. Not included in this video segment is his plan to privatise schools and hospitals using an underwater base PFI scheme.

Tory party Chairman Auric Goldfinger in action.

If your a regular reader of SSY you might wonder what the difference is between the three mainstream parties. Cameron says he wants cuts now, and calls for an emergency budget to do so and Labour says they will enact cuts “deeper than Thatchers. Even St Nick Clegg says he wants “savage cuts”. Cuts, deep cuts, savage cuts, it all sounds like Freddy Krueger pissed on the phone giving you abuse. Fortunately Labour MP Ronnie Campbell outlined the unique vision Labour is advancing in it’s campaign, stating

Vote for me and I'll cut your throat...slowly.

“What I say to people on the doorstep is we will only cut your throat slowly, the others will cut your head off”

This intriguing and novel method of canvassing/threatening to mutilate your own voter base aside, Ronnie, the Tories and the Liberals may all be wrong. Financial experts are predicting that in order to pay off the massive bail out of the bankers greed, head, legs, shoulders, fingers and bollocks may all need to be slashed off with a rusty razor in the name of prudent spending.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development predicts half a million job losses, no matter who wins, of public sector jobs – equivalent to a butchering of 10% of the workforce. The CIPD correctly say that these coming cuts are “dwarfing anything explicit in the election manifestos”.

Scotland’s share of these cuts will be brutal, with 15% of the Budget – £5.2 Billion – being cut. Cuts of this magnitude are beyond belief – they would be the equivalent of half the entire NHS budget for Scotland, and double the education budget. They would result in job losses of almost 80,000 across the public sector in Scotland. This is roughly the same to the SSP’s prediction of 100,000 jobs being lost across Scotland due to public sector cuts, because of the Scottish economies disproportionate reliance on public spending since the collapse of manufacturing; 2 thirds of all jobs in Scotland are reliant on public spending.

The lies the other parties have tried to sell are now exposed – you cannot cut double the education budget in Scotland and expect it all to be directed against faceless, backroom bureaucrats. Cuts of this nature will damage people’s health services, attack a whole generation’s education and throw hundreds of thousands of people on to the dole. Scotland will face an economic disaster that will make Thatcherism seem like a walk in the park – whoever wins. SSP economist Raphie Di Santos outlines the real alternative to cuts below,

At the same time over the last two years the government has pumped £375 billion into the banking system through bailouts and quantitative easing. Little of this has flowed back into the real economy. This figure is almost half the total public deficit. The UK banks have £560 billion in capital (cash) and £5 trillion in assets. At the same time UK banks for calendar years 2008 and 2009 have paid out £13.7 billion in bonuses. Taking these banks under full public ownership and control could wipe out the deficit entirely and act as an engine house for the creation of useful, jobs for young and old alike.

The alternative is to make the majority of the population pay for the crisis. As the Financial times pointed out on 15 April 2010 this is massive cuts. They found a short fall of £30 billion in all the three main parties target deficit levels and their proposed “savings”. This is the equivalent to 25% of spending on the NHS, halving the state pension or an extra tax of £1,100 per year on each household in the UK.

Just a warning, but don’t go anywhere near STV tonight. NICK CLEGG IS GOING TO BE ON IT. And Gordon Brown. And David Cameron. 
The reason:  they’re going to be ‘debating’ with each other, answering stage-managed questions from a strictly controlled studio audience (no clapping, no jeering, no facial expressions), in the first of three much hyped up ’leaders debates’.

This evening, they will begin by discussing ‘domestic issues’ – stuff like crime, health, education and welfare, followed by a competition in which try to out-right each other on immigration. All bets are off! Not to mention that half the issues being debated tonight won’t even apply to Scotland, given that much of Scotland’s domestic decision-making is now devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

Over the three televised debates though, one thing is clear: while Brown, Cameron and Clegg will skirt around the edges of the big issues, argue about national insurance increases, numbers of helicopters and who’s the biggest BFFL with Obama, they’re going to completely avoid discussing two of the biggest issues facing the country at this election: the massive public sector spending cuts that are heading our way, and the ongoing bloodshed and occupation in Afghanistan. The reason being, of course, that the Lib Dems, Labour and the Tories all have a consensus on these issues: that cuts which go ‘deeper than Thatcher’ are what’s needed, and that the ongoing war is an ‘honourable’ fight to ‘defend the safety of the British people and the security of the world in Afghanistan’ (as said by Gordon Brown in the Labour manifesto). Riiiight.

Not that you’d know it from the televised debates,  but there are thankfully other parties out there offering an alternative to the war/cuts/death promised by the mainstream parties. The SSP have been consistently raising the issue of the war in Afghanistan - a war that’s opposed by 70% of the UK population – and we’ll be continuing to try and make it a major issue at this election.

criminalise fat cats, not m cats!

Similarly, we’re the only party in this election that will dare to come out and oppose the criminalisation of mephedrone, which comes into effect tomorrow, and question drugs prohibition in general. As we’ve extensively covered on this blog, all the main parties have been quick to jump on the bandwagon to support the reactionary ban on the drug, sparked by months of tabloid lies, misinformation and pseudo-science.

Today, SSY comrades hit the streets to raise this issue, highlighting the waste of police resources and time that will now go into enforcing the ban on mephedrone – a market that has, following months of free advertising in the media, been put straight into the hands of criminal gangs. It’s madness, and if any of the party leader’s come even close to agreeing with that tonight, I will personally… rip off my own scrotum. Because that’s what people on miaow meow do apparently - I read it in The Sun so it’s gotta be true.

Earlier today over 200 staff and students at Glasgow University rallied against the ongoing ‘restructuring’ process and the cuts which, despite initial denials from management, are eventually beginning to come to light. Called by the UCU, the main lecturer’s union on campus, the demo also had a strong turnout from both Unite and Unison, who represent maintenance and admin staff respectively.

The demo came on the same day it was unveiled in the national press that an entire research unit at the university, the Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division (GUARD), a pioneering group which regularly features on programmes like Time Team, is being closed down by senior management who claim it does not generate enough income. This is despite the fact it made £200,000 over the past financial year and is entirely self-funding! GUARD staff this afternoon told Leftfield of their shock and anger at the decision, but assured us that they wouldn’t be going down without a fight (apparently they’ve got whole cupboards stacked full of medieval weaponry and cannons, just sayin’…).

The decision clearly indicates where the priorities of senior management and Principal Anton Muscatelli lie – in the further marketisation  of education, where any department ‘not generating enough income’ can be discarded and thrown to the scrap heap, and raises serious questions of where the axe will fall next – if a self-funding department at the forefront of archaeology in the UK can be sacrificed, can anything be considered safe?

Over 100 jobs are now at risk at the university. The UCU have identified 83 across four departments which they believe are at threat, plus the 30 staff employed at GUARD. On top of this, across departments staff are not being replaced when leaving – a sly strategy of ‘natural wastage’ that avoids any confrontation. Last year, the University Health Service was subject to serious downgrading, with the closure of the main medical facility for student accommodation. Earlier this year, the post-graduate student union – the only one of its kind in Scotland – went bankrupt. What this amounts to is a serious attack on education and student services, but from a management cynical and skilled enough to stagger out the cuts – chances are, the major announcements will come at the very end of term, if not during the summer holidays itself.

The student-run Anti-Cuts Action Network was established at the uni last year as a pre-emptive move against the cuts. Management have consistently played a difficult game with us, making false promises and refusing to even reveal the existence of the restructuring process in itself until February of this year. Similarly, the student union bureaucracy have acted shamefully – no official student representation showed up in support of today’s demonstration. This comes despite past assurances from the SRC that they will ‘oppose academic cuts’.
Today’s ACAN speaker received an excellent reception, arguing that if any cuts are necessary at Glasgow Uni, it should be the salaries of senior management. Muscatelli is paid £248,000 and received a pay rise of 8% this year. Meanwhile, staff are being offered below-inflationary increases of 0.5%, effectively mounting to a pay cut, exposing the rank hypocrisy of those pushing through these swathing job cuts.

The UCU have called for an immediate halt to the restructuring process and for a fuller consultation to take place.Unfortunately, any opposition to the plans was needed months ago – when the unions were offering ‘cautious welcomes’ to the plans and refusing to engage with those who predicted the inevitable cuts and job losses that would soon follow. Nevertheless, there is still scope for action to be taken – the uni has warned that compulsory redundancies may be necessary, saying that ‘nothing can be ruled out at this stage’.

The restructuring, which will see the number of faculties cut from 9 down to 4 and departments slashed from 45 to around 20, will be complete by August of this year. It looks likely that the major cuts will not be announced until the break-up for the summer, creating obvious difficulties for resistance from a students.
As struggles like the one at Sussex, which has seen a huge militant anti-cuts campaign of student occupations and resistance alongside UCU strike action (in the face of police brutality and unjustified expulsions), the campaign will require mass participation and solidarity between staff and students. Today was just the beginning!

As the General Election campaign enters full swing pundits and pollsters are falling over themselves trying to find out who will become the next Government, based largely on the fates of dozens of swing seats – most across the south east of England. Very little attention so far is being given to Scotland. This is despite Labour driving around Glasgow constituencies asking for folk to vote Labour to “keep the Tories out”. Never mind that Labour’s majority in most Glasgow constituencies is massive – 60% in some cases, that the Tories struggle to hold their deposit in many Glasgow seats and across Scotland Labour hold 40 seats compared to only 1 Tory seat.

Scotland’s been ignored in most of the election coverage because it is taken for granted that it will overwhelmingly vote Labour. It doesn’t matter which way Scotland votes in the national picture, because swing seats in middle England will determine who governs the UK. This meant despite Scotland repeatedly voting Labour throughout the 80’s had no effect on who governed us.

The electoral contest in Scotland has always been different from the UK, as it’s dominated by a rivalry between Labour and the SNP (and in recent years the Lib dems). The SNP have always stood on a platform of “standing up for Scotland” and argued that the only way to keep the Tories out of governing Scotland for good is to go independent.

With a hung parliament now a likelihood, a small but significant SNP group (alongside Welsh Nationalists) could extract concessions out of the larger UK wide parties as part of a coalition Government. The SNP say they’ll bargain with the major parties to spare Scotland harsh Westminster imposed cuts – that More Nats means Less Cuts. While in England a variety of smaller parties – Greens, BNP, UKIP, Respect – are trying to get seats, and have had some success in the past in other elections the SNP make that harder in Scotland. This is because as a party the SNP can play to an extremely varied vote – they can be a party of rural conservatism in the North East of Scotland, and to the left of Labour in Glasgow.

Despite this variety the SNP’s overall programme is still significantly to the left of Labour – opposition to war in Iraq (but not Afghanistan), opposed to Trident nuclear weapons, against the unfair council tax, against privatisation of schools and hospitals. When the SSP has done well in elections, it has been predominantly SNP votes it takes. The SNP has always had a vote from progressive, Left-wing Scots who are angry at Labour’s shift to the right. But do the SNP deserve the reputation of being progressive, left of centre, and in this election, champions of Scotland who will stand against cuts?

The SNP might be able to pose left and opposed to cuts when they stand for Westminster but their record in Holyrood and local councils speaks different. Right after winning the 2007 elections the SNP alongside the Liberals in Edinburgh City council tried to cut 22 schools. Thanks to the opposition of school pupils, unions and their parents – which SSY and the SSP both took part in – the SNP backed down from their plans to slash education in Edinburgh.

They’ve been a lot more successful in other places though – in Renfrewshire the SNP council has imposed hikes in charges for the warden service for the elderly, and is proposing shutting down the school bus service for kids and Johnstone swimming pool. They’ve also got Edinburgh’s services back in their line of sights again – proposing to cut 6 community centres. The SNP have also attacked council workers pay and conditions in West Dunbartonshire and suspended SSP councillor Jim Bollan for supporting the workers in this council.

When the SNP took power one of the first things it did was to freeze the council tax. The SSP spent years campaigning against the council tax, which was a marginally fairer version of the poll tax, but still a tax which does not take account of how much income the taxpayer has. The SNP was shifted to the left by this campaigning and has won support on demands to abolish the tax entirely. Freezing council tax is quite right given how it disproportionately punishes low paid workers, and the SSP has proposed a Scottish Service Tax that would raise more money and shift the burden of tax from the poor to the rich. Unfortunately just freezing the council tax, as the SNP have done without changing the tax system has meant less funds for public services and a necessity for cuts.

The SNP faced opposition from other parties on the issue of the council tax but never pushed forward for reform of the council tax to shame the lib dems in particular for not backing some alternative. Nor did they seriously try and mobilise community organisations, unions, etc to demand Scotland have real control over it’s resources to pay for decent services. The reality is that the SNP whilst having some Left wing MSP’s and councillors has also had a Thatcherite wing who don’t believe the rich should pay more tax. Alex Salmond declared that Scots opposition to Thatcher was based on her social policies not her economic ones – a bit astounding when you consider most popular revulsion of Maggie in Scotland lies in the destruction of industry, mass unemployment and poverty her economic plans caused.

The SNP continue to argue for Thatcherite economics – one of their flagship policies for big business is a cut in corporation tax from 30% to 20%.  Corporation tax was already slashed under the Tory governments in the 80’s and early 90’s, and lost revenue increased through the use of indirect taxes like VAT which spiked up to 17.5%. This now means that the poorest fifth of society pays more in tax as a % than the richest fifth. Under the SNP’s plans, the poorest section of people in Scotland would pay almost double a % of their income in tax than corporations would in tax. This tax cut is justified on the basis that wealth will “trickle down” – that tax cuts for the rich will increase investment in the economy, and this will eventually benefit the low paid and working class majority. The reality however is that when the Tories enacted these tax changes child poverty in the UK tripled. If the SNP are allowed to cut corporation tax there will be less money in the coffers for jobs and services, and more cuts.

There is a whole other raft of issues that the SNP are on quite a different wavelength from some of their left-wing and progressive supporters; on Afghanistan they only call for a “rethink” of the mission, not troop withdrawal; they took money from homophobe Brian Souter and dropped their commitment to re-regulating Scotland’s rigged and privatised bus transport. Alex Salmond also calls for a lowering of the abortion limit from 24 to 20 weeks, which would force a small but abused minority of women to seek the backstreets if they wanted an abortion at 24 weeks.

Voting for the SNP may be more left-wing in many respects than Labour, but they are by no means committed to opposing all cuts like the SSP is, or to redistributing wealth from rich to poor. Their plans for corporation tax would just be another salvo in a continuing war to extract more and more money from working class people to the wealthiest. Their independence was based on Scotland being like Ireland, a “Celtic Tiger” of low wages and lwo taxes with our economy based almost entirely on the finance industry. The SNP have done great damage to the cause of independence by attaching an independent Scotland to an economy based on the casino. Only the SSP has consistently stood against any and all cuts to public services in the past 10 years, with a commitment to a Scotland that is a republic, that abolishes poverty, low pay and involvement in foreign wars. If you want left-wing champions for Scotland don’t vote for a kiddy on SNP to do it, vote for what you wanted, vote SSP.

Who’d have thunk it eh, not only is Gordon Brown a closet Marxist but it turns out the ideas of Socialism have now penetrated the Tory opposition as well. As soon as Maggie took her eye off the ball, we managed to plant our people in the Conservative party and convince them that they had got it all wrong.

At least that’s the only way I can interpret David Cameron’s theft of Socialist policies, as he calls for a maximum wage in the public sector,

A Tory government would establish a fair pay review to ensure that no senior manager in the public sector can earn more than 20 times more than the lowest- paid person in their organisation.

The scheme could mean that up to 200 senior public sector executives would face pay cuts. Public sector chiefs whose salaries would be cut include Ed Richards, the chief executive of Ofcom, whose £392,056 salary is 22 times higher than the estimated lowest full-time salary in his quango, £18,000.

Well done Dave, the SSP has always thought it was ridiculous quango chiefs and council bosses could earn so much more than many of their low paid employees do as civil servants, cleaners, nurses, clerical staff etc – particularly when they try to sack them.

With any luck we should have an announcement from Tory party central office within the hour that, in the spirit of fairness and being in it all together what goes for the public sector must also go for the private sector – which means no private sector CEO should earn more than 20 times any of their workers.

We know it might be hard for the Tory party considering one of their biggest donors, Lord Ashscroft is so wealthy his own personal fortune is considered equal to that of the entire GDP of Belize, but we have faith David Cameron will do the right thing. I mean anything less would be total hypocrisy and make him look quite full of shit, wouldn’t it?

SSY has already reported on the astronomical levels of youth unemployment that Britain is suffering from during the recession. The Government is currently trying to curb it by introducing funding into the “Future Jobs Fund” – a fund which ostensibly exists to provide funding for jobs specifically for those unemployed for 6 months and 18-24 years old.

These jobs are almost always minimum wage however, will only create 150,000 jobs (out of youth unemployment of 2 million) and are only guaranteed to last for 6 months. This will be good for Labour’s election prospects in the short term as youth unemployment falls slightly, but not for stopping another generation from being lost.

The Tories think they have the right idea, and they’ve got backing from none other than Michael Caine. Cameron’s launched a “National Citizen’s Service”, the aim of which is to get young people into voluntary community work – helping old ladies, painting fences, etc. The plan has proved popular in recent opinion polls, and with youth unemployment so high what could be wrong with giving young people work – particularly when it appears to be socially useful work?

Well for a start the work is unpaid. If your under 18 (and Cameron’s plan is directed to 16 year old school leavers) you cannot apply for benefits. With the economy in such dire straits, school leavers today are going to have as much trouble finding jobs as their counterparts did in the 80’s. These lack of options mean that many young people may go into a National Service plan not out of choice but because there is nothing else for them to do.

Not only is there no proper wage in these National Service plans but there is no guarantee of a permanent job, apprenticeship, training or education. It would serve as a good way of getting young people off the unemployment figures but not provide them with much of a future after their National Service is over (and the service will only last for 2 months).

The biggest danger is that the national citizen service plan is a stepping stone to “workfare” – where unemployed young people will be made to work for their beneifts (and not a wage). This was what happened during the last period of mass youth unemployment in the 80’s, where the Tories introduced Youth Training Schemes. This forced school leavers to work for pittance wages for employers.

There’s still a similar scheme like it today, called Skillseekers where some jobs for 16-17 year olds are not minimum wage and young people can work a 40 hour week and take home only £50.

These kind of schemes do not reduce youth unemployment – they are only used as a short term pool of extremely cheap labour for employers. This pool of cheap labour means that companies who need to take on extra staff won’t take them as school leavers on the minimum wage – they’ll wait till they’re on the dole and employ them for £1 – 2 an hour. Both the Tories and New Labour clearly believe that having an army of low paid young workers are necessaries to allow companies to become profitable again after the recession.

What’s the alternative then? Well there’s nothing in principle wrong from community work for unemployed young people – far from it, done properly it can be a socially useful job far more rewarding than working in a bar or a call centre. There are plenty of communities in Scotland suffering the worst levels of poverty in Western Europe who desperately need assistance in making the streets cleaner, safer, providing childcare, running youth centres, assisting the elderly etc. But the SSY and SSP wants jobs like these to be available for unemployed young people on a decent wage, on permanent contracts and with full trade union rights. That can be easily funded if we enacted a greed tax on the hyper-rich in the UK. It may not have many celebrity supporters, but it is an idea which we believe will have a lot of support among young people in Scotland today.

The SSP is standing across Scotland in 10 constituencies, and alongside opposition to cuts in public services we’ll be making the case for the withdrawal of all British troops from Afghanistan. We’ve had new branches and dozens of new members on the back of our campaign for withdrawal, and were also standing SSY and SSP member James Nesbitt in Glasgow Central. Listen to him below speak out against the occupation of Afghanistan.