Though Cowards Flinch

When I last discussed Labour’s pre-budget report, I pointed out that there were a few measures socialists could support, despite the vast bulk of it putting the cost of economic recovery squarely where it doesn’t belong; on the vast majority of working people. One of those measures, which screwed working people even while it also charged business, was the 1% rise in employer and employee national insurance contributions.

It turns out that business, unsurprisingly, thinks that even this modest idea is too much. The CBI had its turn attacking it a few weeks ago, and now the British Chamber of Commerce and Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) have decided to lambast the idea, which, they say, will land businesses with additional charges of some £14 billion over four years.

Bearing in mind the problem this country is going to have with pensions, I’d say employers should be charged a lot more than that. Yet what I specifically wanted to comment on was the evidence CIPD adduced to back up their argument: 8% of employers say the charges will cause lay-offs, 12% say it will prevent them from hiring more staff. What the other 80% say is not released with the press report.

On the basis of this small number, these pressure groups have released a press statement attacking the plans of the government, using the threat of jobs rather like a Damoclean Sword. They’ve also recently, according to the BBC, called for a freeze on the minimum wage for young people. If this isn’t class war, an attempt to pare down as far as possible the already meagre redistributive measures of the government, I don’t know what is.

With Labour floundering in 1980′s-style identity politics (see Harriet Harman’s definition of equality here) rather than mobilising a coalition to increase the lot of people who work hard, to the limit of their skills, and aren’t paid especially well, disaster seems sure to follow. This is, after all, a Labour government which at one time wanted to double the inheritance tax threshold, to outflank the Tories to the right.

Across the water, in liberal Massachusetts, a Republican has soundly beaten his Democratic opponent because the Democratic base didn’t come out to vote. As events in Washington as regards health care reform clearly show, they had nothing to come out and vote for. This is a state where single-payer health care is overwhelmingly supported in poll after poll, but nationally the Democrats are fumbling the ball.

The moral of the story should be perfectly clear; endlessly attempt to appease business or not, it’s up to the leaders of the so-called left-wing parties to put distance between them and their opponents, to act decisively in the interests of their base, the people who elected them. This they have failed to do, and more importantly, show little resolve to do in the future – whether it’s Mandelson attacking the ‘core vote’ strategy or Pelosi saying that real health care reform is essentially dead in the water.

Meanwhile, employers and the parties of capital won’t hesitate to to exactly the opposite, and place the cost of recovery on just the working people we should protect.