It’s been roughly a year since the Coronavirus lockdowns started. Three months ago, I decided to re-join the Socialist Party after a long absence. During this year, we’ve seen:
Boris Johnson speak of herd immunity, without vaccination. Which, in simple English, means letting the virus run rampant, and the old and the weak die. The advantage of this for the Tories is that it would reduce spending on Pensions and Benefits.
Moe Manir, sacked bus driver - Billions of pounds of public money transferred into the pockets of rich Tories. Be it a Track and Trace system that doesn’t work, or unnecessary middlemen being paid huge sums of money to bring in PPE that was unsuitable and had to be discarded.
- Whilst the Tories’ rich mates have been showered with gold, the working class have had to pay the price. Up and down the country, employers (including a Labour Council, Tower Hamlets) have been using a “Fire and Rehire” strategy in an attempt to force down workers' standards of living.
- Workers’ lives have been sacrificed in the pursuit of profit, not least transport workers. London bus drivers have suffered one of the highest death rates. Bus companies have responded by sacking a UNITE union rep who was instrumental in enforcing safety changes on a trumped-up charge.
- Health Service workers have been offered a miserably-low pay offer (1%), and the so-called Labour opposition has not demanded a great deal more for them.
- The Tory government, aided and abetted by Labour's failure to oppose, is now bringing in legislation to make protest against all this, and other injustices, impossible within the law. In the meantime they are using Coronavirus safety rules to prevent any public opposition to their attacks on “key workers”, i.e., the people who actually do the work (as opposed to those who profit from it).
- Whilst using Coronavirus safety issues to prevent people demonstrating for Women’s Safety, following the murder of Sarah Everard, they have not taken action against a single employer responsible for forcing workers to do their jobs in unsafe conditions ... or starve.
- Indeed, one of the groups of workers acting as a “petri dish” to spread the virus in a locality are employed by the Government. Workers at the Driver Vehicle Licensing Authority in Swansea are having to take Industrial Action to enforce Covid safety.
Due to my age and health, I’m not going to be out there on the street very much, even after the pandemic recedes. But I’ll make whatever contributions I can in order to spread this word: That capitalism has outlived its time, and is incapable of solving the problems facing working class people the world over. It’s also incapable of solving the problems facing the environment — as long as capitalism rules, profits will always have priority over planning the future. It probably won’t been in my lifetime, but human life (and most other life as well) on this planet could be wiped out within a few generations.
The solution is a society where the workers, not the rich, own and control society: Socialism.
