Cancel multi-billion arms spending and tax the rich to create jobs, save the NHS and build homes
THEY can’t have it both ways. The Tories say there’s no money to save council services, save jobs in steel, boost flood defences and stop the bankruptcy of NHS trusts. But they’ve got billions for nuclear missiles and high tech submarines: £20bn in Tory figures, but £100bn according to the Trident Commission.
Jeremy Corbyn and our new Labour Party could put forward a real alternative to this madness. Invest in a million climate jobs, save the steel industry, build a better NHS and keep services for all who need them. How to pay for it? Cancel weapons of mass destruction for the Tories and their paymasters and tax the super rich.
Billions more could be raised by redistributing the wealth of the billionaires. Oxfam says 62 individuals own more than half the world’s wealth. The money is there to take our society forwards, if the government would take it.
Save the steel industry
Another 1,050 jobs to go at Tata Steel in Port Talbot and other sites. This follows the axing of 2,200 jobs in Redcar last year. Osborne’s promised manufacturing recovery is nowhere to be seen. Families and whole communities face desperate times. Instead of crocodile tears and inaction, the government should nationalise steel and make a big investment in industrial recovery, supplying steel for millions of new homes, upgraded flood defences and better transport.
Stop the council cuts
The Tories want a cut of £11.3bn from council budgets by 2015/16 This means destroying vital services across the country. Money can be redirected from armaments and tax breaks to restore council funding.
End the housing crisis
Britain’s dirty secret is that middle class prosperity relies on constant house price rises. These are caused by a systematic policy of housing under-supply. So millions can’t afford to get on the ladder, tenants face eviction from estates and will be forced into the private rented sector and councils plan to build a tiny fraction of what’s needed. Public investment should be directed to building a million homes, not creating weapons that can destroy millions of homes in minutes.
What about defence jobs?
Many in the Labour and trade union movement hate nuclear weapons but are worried about the impact cancelling Trident would have on jobs. While Jeremy Corbyn wants Labour to oppose Trident renewal, union leader Sir Paul Kenny of the GMB has challenged him, in the name of his members’ jobs.
But there is no need to choose between the two evils of job losses or Cameron’s military spending. In World War Two car plants switched from civilian to military production without losing a single shift. Seventy-five years on it would not be beyond us to deploy the skills of defence workers into useful jobs on the same pay. Everyone would benefit. The Labour right and union leaders like Sir Paul Kenny are not really campaigning for jobs, they are supporting the British establishment’s war drive, like they did over Syria.
