My impression of the Woolwich attacks

The killing in Woolwich is horrific because it is an everyday horror, brought to you live by mobile phone cameras. Television brings you close, it constantly puts you inside the action, and it's clear from this that any numpty with a meat cleaver can slaughter somebody in the street and in the process drag the political agenda down to the depths.

There will be a racist backlash. Probably some awful new law will be passed to 'deal' with the problem (there is no dealing, as such, with simple murder). The EDL have already rioted in South East London. The coming lumpen-Kristallnacht has already been prepared by years of Islamophobia. The only thing stopping it from happening is the anti-fascist movement.

Doom, glorious doom

Capitalism will leave a legacy to socialism. It’s likely then that if workers power comes to pass it will be an emergency regime. Here’s is another thing to consider, a report by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, discussing likely future health emergencies resulting from climate change. If Britain becomes warmer and wetter it will become more prone to previously tropical diseases.

They are already heading our way. Dengue was detected in France in 2010. Malaria was reported in Greece in 2011. The West Nile Virus first emerged in New York in 1999 and is now found across the United States.

If and when these diseases do infiltrate our society it will be a question of what cost we, or more precisely the people in power, are willing to pay, greater overheads maintaining public health, or the running cost of continual human suffering. Given the debased state of our ruling class I suspect they’d prefer a debilitated and desperate working class to a mild redistribution of wealth for a conscientious and functioning society. 

Bitter, moi?

Utter disaster reigns across the planet. Humanity is all but destroyed. Nuclear fallout is fast approaching. The last three humans are gathered together in an empty street discussing what to do. They are a socialist, an anarchist and a Labour Party hack.

The socialist says:

"We're up against it but we have to fight. We must find food and build some sort of shelter before the fallout begins. The quicker we work the better our chances will be".

But the anarchist disagrees:

"This is nonsense, we need to take direct action against the cloud. I'll stand behind you two and chuck stuff at it".

The Labour Party hack sighs:

"What ultra-left nonsense; the pair of you! How can you consider taking action when we haven't even concluded negotiations with the cloud?"

There is no agreement. The trio repair different parts of street. The socialist goes searching for food in the various bombed out houses, the anarchist meanwhile starts burning piles of newspapers. The Labour Party hack departs altogether but returns an hour later with good news, feeling pleased with himself after booking a suite in a nearby abandoned hotel, ideal for further talks. But, alas, he looks up and sees it's too late, the cloud is about to break... The Labour Party hack then has an idea. He goes up to the anarchist, who's still burning stuff:

"Hey anarchist, I've got an idea".

He explains the idea to the anarchist, whispering, even though there's no one to overhear. Moments later the pair call the socialist out:

"Hey socialist, over here. We've got something to show you".

The socialist is reluctant, the nuclear rain is about to fall, but is eventually persuaded to come over to his comrades. The anarchist and the hack then bludgeon the socialist to death.

As the first drops of scaling, radioactive water fall from the sky, the Labour Party hack, chewing on a piece of the dead socialist, remarks to the anarchist:

"This is it, this is truly the end. Such a shame it had to end this way".

"Yeah" agrees the anarchist, face wet with gore, "but at least we didn't let the SWP hijack our movement".

Banks given until 2019 to take what they can and run

But THEN they have to stop. Until then Britain wants as much Russian gangster cash as possible. Of course, by 2019 we'll all be fighting 8ft tall radioactive scorpions (probably stamped with the Barclays logo) for the last drops of potable water:

According to the IFS, the squeeze on living standards will be the result of earnings failing to keep pace with prices, as well as the tax and benefit changes announced by the government to tackle the UK's record peacetime budget deficit.

"Welfare cuts and tax rises will act to reduce household incomes, and those with the lowest incomes are clearly set to lose the most from these reforms as a percentage of income (with the important exception of those with the very highest incomes). This is likely to increase poverty, other things being equal, offsetting some of the falls in poverty over the past decade."

Of course it isn't a record peacetime deficit (there are high levels of government borrowing, but that's another matter). The national debt was many times greater in 1948, when the NHS was founded (see picture). What's interesting in the IFS report is the line highlighted:

The IFS analysis is included in The Great Recession and the Distribution of Income, published on Monday by the London School of Economics. Professor Stephen Jenkins of the LSE said: "We were surprised at how little household incomes changed in the years immediately after the Great Recession began. This has been the worst macroeconomic downturn in most OECD countries since the Great Depression of the 1930s when there were substantial increases in poverty rates and other significant changes to the income distribution."

A pay freeze relative to inflation is a pay cut. This has been the strategy for several decades; hold down wages to raise profits. With inflation at 4-5% that's a big cut. Of course, it only half-worked, all those years. The previous mini long-boom was driven by speculation. Low effective demand combined with large amounts surplus capital, encouraged a culture of widespread borrowing and lending (borrowing to lend sometimes). It was fitting then this global pyramid scheme foundered on subprime mortgages.

Warning that pain had been delayed but not avoided, the IFS said families with children would be hit harder by Osborne's tax and benefit changes than other family types on average, with the poorest 10th of households suffering income losses of more than 8% over the next three years. "Recent IFS modelling predicted that child poverty will rise in each of the three years between 2010-11 and 2013-14, and that it will be about two percentage points higher in 2013-14 as a result of the tax and benefit reforms planned by the current government."

If you can't forsake the god of capital accumulation you will have to sacrifice your children to appease him.