Unions attack Brown's mail betrayal

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) urged Mr Brown to honour Labour's manifesto commitment to keep Royal Mail publicly owned after he pandered to Tory leader David Cameron's criticism of his handling of the recession by saying that new Labour's privatisation agenda would continue unabated.

"Because we must change the way that government works, our decision on Royal Mail will be followed by other action to get the best return from government-owned assets," Mr Brown insisted.

However, CWU general secretary Billy Hayes pointed out that the manifesto commitment is a promise to the public, employees and businesses that rely on the Royal Mail's services.

"There is no need to privatise and sell stakes in key public-sector businesses to get government assets to perform," he said.

"Labour can safely steer the country through this recession without falling into the trap of socially damaging neoliberal economic action."

Harking back to the days of Thatcherism, Mr Cameron claimed that the recession should not be used by Mr Brown as an opportunity to "tear up the market system" and return to 1970s-style interventionism.

"I think that's what the Prime Minister is doing and I think that's a huge mistake," he said.

Mr Cameron also said that, if the Tories were in power, they would help savers, who he described as the "innocent victims" of the economic downturn.

He said that he would scrap taxes on basic-rate taxpayers' savings and would increase the level of non-taxable income for pensioners by £2,000 a year, which would be fully funded by lower public spending.

Left Labour MP John McDonnell said that the government's recession strategy has been a "disastrous failure.

"It has used taxpayers' money to subsidise the people who created the crisis in the first place. Working people should not have to bail them out," he insisted.

"Cameron's response is equally disastrous in propping up the very system that is putting people on the dole. What we need is a socialist system that puts significant investment in public services. A strategy that is also under democratic control, with full trade union rights."

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber attacked Mr Cameron's tax plans, noting that the taxpayer would have to shell out £5.4 billion to fund the proposal, which would mostly benefit big banks, the super-rich and tax avoiders.

"It would not create a single new job but would instead add to the dole queues as a result of proposed cuts in public spending," he warned.

"We can only spend and work our way out of a recession. Saving alone would simply sink us further into recession."

See also:
Editorial: Right back to Thatcherism