Transparent class war

Cameron knows that Cable remains committed to the austerity agenda and that the Business Secretary's idle musings are intended purely for discontented grassroots Liberal Democrats' consumption.

That's why the Treasury had no problem approving Cable's journalistic foray. It's not to be taken seriously.

Even less worthy of being taken seriously is the Prime Minister's assessment of the current state of the economy and the effectiveness of George Osborne's slash-and-burn policies.

Cameron swears by his Chancellor's approach, which he claims is working even though the economy is at best flatlining - at worst heading for a triple-dip recession - and the government deficit is increasing rather than being reduced.

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The Prime Minister lamented the loss of Osborne's comfort blanket, the AAA credit rating, as "the starkest possible reminder of the debt problem we face" without understanding that it is the direct result of the Chancellor's prioritisation of spending cutbacks over growth.

Refusing to believe the evidence of his own and everyone else's eyes that Osborne's medicine is poisoning the patient, he demands more poison.

He accuses the growing number of people who reject the austerity agenda and demand government borrowing at rock-bottom rates to stimulate the economy and thereby increase the Treasury tax take, of believing in a "magic money tree."

His loyal deputy Nick Clegg, while affecting some sympathy for Cable's position, backs Cameron by asserting that "there is no cost-free, magic-wand solution to this," as though someone had suggested that there is.

"We all want more money into capital. The debate is how do you find that money," he adds.

Unfortunately there is no such debate taking place within government circles. No minister suggests higher corporation tax, a wealth tax or increased taxation of those who can afford it most.

Ministers are united in the conviction that the working class should bear the brunt of financial crisis through higher indirect taxation and savage cuts in essential services and welfare benefits.

This conviction was reconfirmed in the House of Lords on Wednesday night when the government parties voted to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales, despite a clear majority of respondents to a government consultation, including farmers, insisting on its retention.

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Liberal Democrat Agriculture and Food Minister David Heath calls the board "a costly relic of a previous age," which would seem a more accurate description of the monarchy or House of Lords.

Tory junior Business Minister Lord Younger dismissed concerns that 150,000 farm workers will see their pay plummet in response to supermarket demands for lower food prices.

This scion of a dynasty of Scottish brewers must have been sampling too much of the family output if he discerns "no evidence at all" for this likelihood.

Tory and Liberal Democrat ministers are in any case unconcerned about loss of earnings enforced on working people.

What really concerns them is the plight of downtrodden starving bankers, as in Osborne's intervention to oppose a cap on bankers' bonuses to no more than the equivalent of two years of their salary.

The government's class-war policies are transparent, which requires the labour movement and its political representatives to match its determination in fighting for the working class.