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11 months to go

Left MP Skinner calls for campaign of resistance as the Queen takes another swipe at working people

LEADING left MP Dennis Skinner called for a massive 11-month mobilisation yesterday to kick out Prime Minister David Cameron and his Lib Dem cronies at the 2015 general election.

Mr Skinner fired the campaign starting gun when Black Rod strode into the Commons in fancy garb and gaiters to solemnly summon MPs to hear the Queen’s Speech.

“The coalition’s last stand!” shouted Mr Skinner amid laughter and applause.

An irreverant jibe from the Bolsover MP has become a tradition during the opening of a new session of Parliament.

But speaking to the Morning Star afterwards in deadly serious mood, Mr Skinner called for an “all-out attack” on the coalition in the coming year.

The Labour Party executive member emphasised: “That means we need some decent socialist policies.

“We need policies to revive the economy and put money into the pockets of working-class people.

“And we must stand up to the corporations, the bankers and the rest who have scooped up billions from this government over the last four years.”

The Queen’s Speech, delivered amid much pomp in the House of Lords, set out a particularly bleak and pathetic perspective for the last year of the present Con-Dem government.

The Queen announced the driving of a coach and horses through the trespass laws to allow voracious energy corporations to tap into mega-profits from shale gas.

Greedy energy companies will be allowed to extend shale gas drilling under people’s homes without permission.

Brazen government spin doctors claimed that this was “entirely dependent” on the outcome of public consultation.

Green MP Caroline Lucas condemned government spin on fracking as “pure hot air.”

She accused ministers of “steamrollering through legislation that will deny people any say in what happens to the very ground beneath their homes.”

Cuts in health and safety controls will be introduced under the guise of “helping small businesses.”

Limited legislation is promised to fine employers who fail to pay the minimum wage, and to ban zero-hours contracts if they tie workers exclusively to one employer.

Another new Bill will provide for recall of MPs who commit “serious wrongdoing.” A by-election would be triggered by a petition signed by 10 per cent of constituents.

But Tory MP Zac Goldsmith immediately complained that the proposed Bill was “breathtakingly” limited, only providing for a by-election petition if an MP receives a jail sentence or the Commons itself decides that a member should face a petition.

 The speech failed to include a Bill safeguarding publicly owned woodland, despite the government’s supposed change-of-heart on privatising forests.

Mr Cameron ignored a last-minute appeal from a coalition of forest campaigners, who urged him to fulfil a promise of legislation for a new public forest management organisation.

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey accused ministers of “limping toward next year’s general election with no real solutions to tackle the big issues that matter to working people.”

Public service union PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “The lack of substance in the Queen’s Speech exposes the fact that this is a one-trick government. It has played all its cards by slashing public spending and blaming the poor for our economic problems.”

Labour leader Ed Miliband condemned the Queen’s Speech for failing to address the concerns of millions of people who felt that Parliament did not speak for them — particularly the five million working people suffering poverty pay.

But Mr Miliband then undermined his appeal to voters by declaring that it was “profoundly wrong” to call for withdrawal from the EU.

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