The life of the British bourgeoisie

The preparations for the referendum on Scottish independence, leaving aside Westminster’s legal wrangles over the wording, seem to be going ahead, prompting the question: is this for real, or is it just another form of the democratic diversion?

In April, in exchanges in the House of Commons Prime Minister David Cameron advised Labour’s Angela Eagle to “Calm down, dear.” He told Tory MP Nadine Dorries she was “frustrated”. There was the usual debate between the ‘outraged’ and those who thought it was ‘just a bit of fun’, but it wasn’t until October that Cameron felt compelled to apologise. This appeared to stem from the Coalition’s concern about women’s lack of appreciation of its activities.

Many workers know from bitter experience the nasty, lying nature of the British media. The ‘free press’, ‘unbiased’ TV, are merely means for the ruling class to frame the way we see and understand the world: an important part of totalitarian state capitalism’s repressive apparatus aimed at ensuring that we don’t even want to think about changing it. If nothing else, the top-rated scandal around Rupert Murdoch’s News International over the summer of 2011 briefly cast this truth in the spotlight.

According to many of the bourgeoisie’s journalists the Labour party has thrown away the opportunity to elect a mature, serious leader in the form of David Milliband and instead chosen his younger brother, nicknamed by the press ‘Red Ed’. These journalists and political analysts seem to think that the Blair years of ‘New Labour’ provide the paradigm for judging everything, without observing that recent developments at the economic level have substantially changed the situation. The bourgeoisie have to prepare for the future, not look to the past.

When the LibDems and the Tories agreed on a coalition the French newspaper Le Monde quaintly described it as "A marriage of reason at 10 Downing Street". In reality, for all the horse-trading and manoeuvring that went on behind the scenes those involved in the negotiations were united in seeing the seriousness of their task.

‘Class war' language is not very fierce in the hands of Labour and its left-wing supporters, but it has succeeded in convincing a third of voters that the Tories are the party of the ‘upper classes'.

The much-criticised appearance of Nick Griffin on BBC Question Time demonstrated that, far from being outside the political mainstream, the BNP actually serves to strengthen the bourgeoisie's democratic ideology

"Gordon Brown has disappeared at moments of political crisis before..." (The Economist 5/9/9). After the release of al-Megrahi to die in Libya the PM waited 5 days before saying anything and then only to condemn the rapturous welcome he received on landing. Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill was left to take all the flak.

When Labour pushed through the legislation extending detention without charge from 28 to 42 days, the air was full of the usual talk about basic freedoms and the preservation of civil liberties that has accompanied counter-terrorist bills over the years.

Things have been so difficult for Gordon Brown recently you could almost feel sorry for him. The agony began on May 1

After less than 6 months the Brown government is on the rack. Its leader's reputation for competence and efficiency has plummeted, its ministers have been caught up in a series of cock-ups, and the Labour Party is under fire for sleaze and corruption. Obviously, you'd expect the opposition to take every advantage of each slip made by the government, but what's the truth about the problems facing Brown and Co?

Revelations that Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan received £30 million a quarter from BAE over a ten year period (that’s more than £1 billion coughed up by the British taxpayer), with the full knowledge of the Ministry of Defence, didn’t cause Tony Blair any ethical problems...

Since becoming Conservative Party leader last December, David Cameron has changed the party’s logo, launched a new mission statement, rejected immediate tax cuts and pledged to defend the NHS. Comparisons have been made with Blair’s ‘re-branding’ of New Labour in the 1990s. With a rise in support for them and Labour in increasing difficulties the Conservatives are beginning to look electable again. However, these developments are no more the fruit of Cameron’s leadership than they were of Blair’s in the mid 1990s: they reflect the needs of British capitalism.

At the end of the summer, after Prime Minister Blair had returned from his holiday, an attempt was made to force him from office. A chorus of criticism built up, with calls for him to give an exact date for his departure or even to leave immediately. This was followed by letters from various groups of MPs and came to a crescendo with the orchestrated resignations from the government of several junior figures.

Loans for peerages is the latest in a series of scandals to hit the Blair government. Having focused on particular ministers such as Blunkett and Jowell (the Berlusconi Connection), or on Blair’s wife Cherie and her speaking tours, it has finally settled on the issue of loans for peerages. This is an issue of Labour government hypocrisy, certainly, since it had changed the rules to make political parties announce all large donations, but left itself a loophole for loans. The Labour government is described as having the same stench of sleaze as the Major government shortly before it was ousted by a landslide.

Tony Blair appears to be adrift in a sea of troubles: revelations about his role in the build up to the Iraq war, tensions with the rest of the EU, ‘conflict’ between him and Gordon Brown over pension policy, warnings about the level of government overspending, open revolts in his party over anti-terrorist laws, over the use of nuclear power… The golden boy of British politics, who could do no wrong, is now mired in problems as his stint as the leader of the ruling team comes to an end.

In the next round of the Conservative Party leadership election the party membership takes the final decision. The press suggests that they will follow the MPs and opt for David Cameron. At one stage the media was hounding Cameron about youthful drug taking. But he faced down the challenge and refused to answer. The issue has now gone down the agenda. That small triumph showed him as a serious contender for the party leadership.

The abiding image of the 2005 Labour Party conference is not of rousing speeches by the party leaders, nor of the latest episode in the Blair-Brown soap opera. It is of 82-year-old party member and refugee from Nazi persecution, Walter Wolfgang, being forcibly ejected from the hall after shouting “nonsense” at Jack Straw when the latter was pontificating about Iraq.

As the bourgeoisie marks the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the second world war as the "victory of freedom", the second part of this article focuses on Churchill's wartime role and what it reveals about Britain's real motives and interests in a war supposedly fought for democracy against the evils of Nazism.