Further on Black Lives Matter

Patrick Sikorski


The Murder of George Floyd and the Anti Racist Struggle

Points

1. As Spike Lee said there is is nothing “new” about the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota USA – it’s been going on for over 400 years.

2. What is new is that someone with a smart phone recorded the obscenity (with a sound track revealing a fragment of racist taunting from the murderer) and it went global.

3. So in the context of the biggest global pandemic for over a century which has stripped bare the gross inequalities in the richest country in the world, another black person is killed while being arrested by an officer of the law, on “suspicion of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 note”.

4. Trump declares himself the President of Law and Order and threatens the protesters and the American people with first the National Guard and then the Army under the Insurrection Act. He knows the latter isn’t feasible (just yet…..) but in the meantime he’s mobilising his base – including it’s armed militia wing. And for good measure he’s mobilising God as well, after having the steps of St. John’s Church in Washington DC cleared by tear gas of peaceful protesters.

5. Apparently recent polls show that 82% of Americans believe in God. 62% of them believe that the virus is a message telling humanity to change; 55 per cent believe that God will protect them.

6. There is more to it. He (that’s Trump!) brandishes a bible in defence of the divine rights of property over and above the people’s claim to human rights – the Founding Fathers would be proud. Not for him any liberal style support for protests at an injustice whilst denouncing the rioting and looting – no, the message is very clear - just get off the streets and get back to work and back into your ghettos. 

In a leaked conversation with former staff members, Obama called the US response to the Covid epidemic “an absolute chaotic disaster”. Majority Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, reinforcing the stereotype of the white Southerner telling the black man he ought know his place, said “Obama should have kept his mouth shut”.

7. But ideology and its constant reproduction can only continue to work effectively if it has a secure basis in material reality. The material reality for most working and middle class Americans is that their standards of living, job security, pensions and health care have been systematically trashed over the last 40 years – and that includes the Obama years. And then came the Crash of 2008 and the plague of 2019. 

Now half of all Americans receive health insurance through their employers. If the unemployment rate, caused by the lockdowns, continues at 20% it is estimated that as many as 43 million will loose their insurance.

8. With long practised speed and precision, the mass media both in the USA and UK, frame the events as rioters versus protestors and outside agitators versus legitimate local citizens to turn attention away from how heavy law enforcement de-legitimises all policing, at the same time as taking the spotlight off the impunity with which neo-fascists wield assault rifles both inside and outside state capitols.

9. As one American civil rights activist, Cornel West, says;


“ It also obscures the role of the repressive apparatus in preserving an order so unjust and cruel. The rule of big money, class and gender hierarchies and global militarism must be highlighted in our profound concern with anti – black police murder and brutality.”

10. The explosion of solidarity across much of the USA and finding a strong echo here in the UK and elsewhere, mark a new and decisive chapter. The response was immediate and strong – no laborious build up – just anti – racist action. Home made placards and leadership on the road, on the day and collective. Tens of thousands of overwhelmingly young people in a multi- racial rejection of a barbaric killing and the system that spawned it. It takes guts to face off riot police, deal with tear gas and batons and defy curfews. It takes magnificent moral and physical courage and the clean, clear sightedness of youth, uncluttered by the heavy loads of serial defeats, to do the right thing.

Such events set a seal with the future for those who directly partake in them and many will take up those challenges. They will form a new leadership in their communities and their workplaces. They will need to reach out to form united fronts with others who will step up to the plate. At the same time the struggle of the BAME community needs no lectures from anyone on how to conduct that struggle. They have the right to use whatever means are necessary to achieve their liberation from oppression

Trump thinks he needs a civil war

The murder of George Floyd is not some incredible moment of police madness. It is the result of the legitimisation of legal killing of black people in the USA. The reason why George Floyd's killer has been charged with murder is because millions of Americans, led by the black population, have revolted against this well-known fact. There will be huge results.

The black leadership in the US (and across the globe, including the UK) has rolled out (yet again) the many, socially and politically-hidden truths, of consistent, regular, organised, systemic, racism and its often deadly consequences. This blog is narrowed to Trump's reaction.

First is the the measure and strength of genuine mass movements of the people. The effect on the system and the regime of the mightiest power in the world is spectacular. The action, on the streets, by the millions, proves unstoppable. This is demonstrated by the utter failure of the Obama presidency, who mobilised an enormous movement to win his election, but who incessantly closed  down action by the people when it came to challenging the power of the state and government - even for his mild reforms. His response today to Trump? 'Vote'. Obama, even in his own terms, is still failing.

But the mass movement that emerged from the murder of George Floyd is not waiting or relying on Obama's call to 'vote' in November. The movement, if it fully succeeds, will certainly change the new President but also the effective implementation of reform by changing society. Already, following days of mass action, the whole picture in the US is starting to shift. Obama could not do it in his eight years.

So how is Trump facing this? For the first time since his election in 2016 he is frightened. He was always entirely interested in his own victory. For years, in which his poisonous, self-seeking behaviour seemed to have ranged from comedy to danger, his polling numbers remained stable from the mid 30%s to the low 40s. (Even after his recommendation to use bleach to 'defeat' the Coronavirus.)  For the first time since 2016 that has shifted. Can anybody believe that this is the product of Biden and the leadership of the Democrats? The defining strength of the anti-racist upsurge is indisputable. Even the Fox polls, focussed on the key states, are now showing failure for Trump in Arizona, Ohio, Wisconsin. Even Texas has come close. Trump had 306 electoral votes from the states in 2016. Now he has 270 and falling.

This has frightened Trump to the soles of his feet. Even Trump's violent efforts to clear 'the terrorists' outside the White House when he made his 'God like' photo shot, complete with a curled-up Churchilian style bottom lip, did not push up the polls. Which brings in his play with the military. Legally and technically he can do it. If the movement subsides he won't do it - for now. But if the movement continues, and the polls do not lift, Trump will put US soldiers on American streets.

Everybody knows the dangers, including Trump. At the bottom line soldiers do not calm down rioters, they are solely trained to shoot them. Many black leaders suggest that the murder of George Floyd might lead to the continuation and hopefully a positive resolution of the American Civil War - 155 years later. This is not a fantasy. Trump is not worried by a serious, albeit a mini-collision in society - so long as he succeeds. In his idiot way he imagines a battle where he has all the power. Is it necessary, after all lots of old generals don't want it? Big capital are scared, but impotent in the coming slump when the state has all the cards. Meanwhile Trump is toying with his new hot uniform.  

National Recovery Council - a deadly mistake.

The (London) Guardian newspaper of May19 put out the latest scheme developed by the Trades Union Congress with the support of the leadership of a number of large unions. The TUC proposed a National Recovery Council. 

This was the substance of the article. 

The leader of the Trades Union Congress has declared “the state is back” as the UK’s biggest unions urged the government to form a national recovery council in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The TUC, which represents 48 unions in England and Wales, has called in a report for the establishment of the body, which it argues would bring together government, unions and employers to create a greener and fairer economy.

In an interview with the Guardian, the TUC general secretary said there could be no return to business as usual after the pandemic.

“We’ve got to get that safety net strung again, we’ve got to invest in our public services, which may have to build resilience for a long time to come,” Frances O’Grady said. “Unions are back … but the state is back too.”

Launching the report alongside the shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, on Wednesday, the TUC is calling for a return of the unity shown in the years after the second world war, arguing that the post-conflict decade of social investment created growth of 3.3%, but a decade of austerity after the banking crash resulted in growth of 1.9%.

“This can’t be about working people paying the price again,” said O’Grady. “I think there is a real sense that this has got to be a people’s effort. It can’t just be left to employers or politicians, we’ve got to step up too.”


The TUC, which represents 5.5 million members, is also calling for an overhaul of the UK’s business model – which it argues is based on low-paid, insecure jobs and the exclusion of workers from decision-making. It has called for an increase in the minimum wage to £10 an hour, a public sector pay rise, a ban on zero-hours contracts and a job guarantee scheme – particularly for young people facing a bleak future.

In the far-reaching document the TUC argues that systems for trade and finance damage the interests of poorer countries and drive unfair pay, and calls for changes to international rules and institutions, as well as a plan to tackle discrimination faced by black and minority ethnic people, women and disabled people.

It praises the government’s “constructive” work with unions on the creation of the job retention scheme, adding that the ability of local authorities to take homeless people off the street, the emergence of mutual support groups and the adaptability of the workforce, as well as government interventions, “show the speed and scale of what can be done when it is necessary”. It adds that the same commitment and urgency must be applied to tackling the climate emergency.

“We’ve run out of excuses about creating a carbon-free economy,” said O’Grady.

Industry bailouts and any state investment in the next few months must come with an “Olympics-style plan” for jobs and a minimum requirement for the use of UK products and services to rebuild UK manufacturing, says the report. With unemployment levels set to increase dramatically, it argues jobless people should be given a “funded individual learning account” to learn new skills, with the promise of a job at the end of training.


“We’ve got to build back brick by brick, but it has to be fair, decent rewards, fair taxes – all of that has got to be back on the agenda,” said O’Grady. “I think the centre of gravity has shifted and people are remembering why equality matters.”

WiredGov, a well known internet magazine, followed up by responding with a lead article written by a professor from the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA).

IEA Editorial and Research Fellow Professor Len Shackleton responded to the TUC’s report published yesterday, A Better Recovery, which calls for the government to form a National Recovery Council

“The TUC’s plan for ‘a better recovery’ would almost guarantee we would have no recovery at all.

“Until Covid-19 hit, the UK’s labour market was at its most successful in decades with very high levels of employment and the lowest unemployment rate for 45 years. This was due in large measure to its flexibility compared to the scelerotic continental European economies. To abandon that approach would be foolish in the extreme.

“A higher minimum wage for all workers, pay increases for the public sector, a ban on zero hours contracts, higher benefits and other goodies proposed by the TUC are fantasies in the current climate and would worsen unemployment.

“The proposal for a tripartite National Recovery Council would be a pointless talking shop. It resembles the National Economic Development Council of the 1960s, a decade of industrial strife which too many unionists look on with fondness. No government can provide a ‘job guarantee’ of the sort the TUC report calls for. 

“These measures, and others such as the plan to ban outsourcing and to subsidise new ‘green’ businesses, would mean a greatly increased tax burden on the private sector which ultimately finances far too many of the UK’s public sector trade unionists. Our way out of the recovery must involve a bigger role for the market economy, not its further constriction by government.”

The writers of a letter that was published 'Big Economic Upheaval in UK,' May 19 in this blog, opened out a framework for a post Coronavirus, which was an alternative to the economy and society actually being prepared by the government in the UK. The introduction to that May 19 letter follows;  

'Active socialists, trade unionists and people fighting for radical change have presented a public statement that prepares a new vision - post Coronavirus. The statement will be sent out to many. This 'Polecon blog' has also accepted to post the declaration. It provides a powerful and positive platform for the future. 

Following the same understanding, Polecon fully supports the efforts being made by the Peoples Assembly to unite a broad movement aimed at resisting the new austerity being prepared by the Tory government. Polecon asks the Peoples Assembly and all those with the relevant expertise and experience, including those supporting Labour's Manifestos of 2017 and 2019, to assemble around a commission designed to prepare the new economy.'

The TUC's suggestion for a National Recovery Council in common with the Johnson-led Tory government is, potentially, a deadly mistake. In the first place the cautious and backward objectives of 'A Better Recovery' will fail - even in the completely unlikely case of an economic coalition with Johnson's government. Second, the idea that a so called 'national agreement', rising above the the years of the huge attack on millions of working class people in every aspect of their lives, is viable, or even acceptable, is ridiculous. For those who really had to defend the NHS, who had to mobilise and campaign to squeeze the state and stop a plague, the TUC proposal is denying the truth of the relentless offensive that has been the real experience for most of those people. Third, Johnson may well play with the TUC's offer in order to promote a fake social unity - another, different way to emasculate any real opposition. And finally, if some of the TUC leadership think that the Tories will be exposed when they fail to adopt the TUC's proposal - it will be Johnson that will 'expose' the 'unfriendly' TUC. A serious alternative is put as fast and clear as possible onto the table. Tricks do not work when the wealthy and the rest have to finally resolve their fundamental arguments.   

The TUC leadership have walked through the Tory door. 

Of course there should be critical change in the new economy and its foundations in a new society. And this must stand as a plain and fundamental opposition to the failed and dangerous future we are being offered. There is huge social support for new nationalisations, for curbing finance and for a new industrial revolution. And, with the 14 million voters in 2017 and the 10 million in 2019, under the worst offensive since the battles for mass unions, women's rights and the welfare state, there is a potentially massive social block that can start to win a whole society. But only if the Tories are minimised from the start, rather than promoted by yet another hollow version of Johnson's 'national unity.' 

The writers of the May 19 letter in the blog - Big Economic Upheaval in UK - now ask the Peoples Assembly to allow an urgent response to the TUC proposal, including major discussions, leading up to 'Day X'. 

Big economic upheaval in UK.

Active socialists, trade unionists and people fighting for radical change have presented a public statement that prepares a new vision - post Coronavirus. The statement will be sent out to many. This 'Polecon blog' has also accepted to post the declaration. It provides a powerful and positive platform for the future. 

Following the same understanding, Polecon fully supports the efforts being made by the Peoples Assembly to unite a broad movement aimed at resisting the new austerity being prepared by the Tory government. Polecon asks the Peoples Assembly and all those with the relevant expertise and experience, including those supporting Labour's Manifestos of 2017 and 2019, to assemble around a commission designed to prepare the new economy. 

A Declaration

Provoked by the Coronavirus, sweeping changes are multiplying across the globe. In the UK many gaps have been exposed in the health and social services. Behind the problems faced by what has been called in the UK – ‘the front line services’ – there also looms deep faults in the UK economy and its politics , exposing the chasm between the rich and the poor. The death count demonstrates the lie that the coronavirus is classless and blind to race. The UK has already become the weakest link in the Coronavirus chain across Europe. 

As the first wave of the pandemic subsides in the West, it is generally accepted that the wealth held by States will be used to maintain, as far as possible, the previous economic conditions. But despite the rhetoric poured by politicians over the heads of millions who are struggling with the pandemic, a vicious ‘austerity 2’ is very close. The word ‘austerity’ will be denied by governments and their allies, particularly in the UK. But unemployment plus lower wages and poorer conditions and, after the applause fades, inroads into health and welfare resources, will re-emerge. Millions, including the middle classes, will experience a drop in living standards, deeper and more hectic than in the last decade. 

The major States in the West and the East , including the US and China, have, since 2008, been propping up what is dubiously called ‘global capitalism.’ Once more a failing economic system is soaking up the resources of the different nations, in order to maintain the domination of a spent system. In 2008 it was the banks that received State finances, preventing their own collapses via funding stock exchanges that expanded corporate wealth. This time it is the corporations themselves that are directly demanding State wealth.

It is the politics of course that will decide what happens across nations when the pandemic finishes. Since 2008 politics in Western Europe the US and the BRIC countries have failed to serve their populations in terms of living standards. Because of that failure new politics have emerged. 

The prime political momentum in the West and in some BRIC countries is becoming more dangerous. Facing down the rise of the right after the pandemic will be a crucial part of breaking the new right’s surge. The rise of the new right and its growing collection of governments has always attacked minorities and is now preparing for the use of force in society. (See Poland, Hungary, Brazil and Trump’s new militia in Michigan.) Because social disruption is now likely to erupt as a response to the second austerity in several countries, the right intends to maintain their political domination by force or by manipulation of the votes. Their drive for their version of ‘security’ is designed to win the support of large capital. Anti-fascism and anti-racism can no longer base themselves simply on liberal speeches. Mass defensive action in the US, in Europe and in the BRIC countries is needed. 

The recent defeat of left Social Democracy in the US and in the UK has left millions without mainstreampolitical organisations that might help contesting the right. This will elevate the inevitable excuse following the pandemic that ‘there is no alternative’ when it comes to the reduction in the standards and quality of lives of the majority.

Yet across the whole of the West, especially obvious in the UK, there appears to be the view that a substantial change in society is sorely needed. Endless polls reflect very low belief in current political institutions and disappointment in the failings in society. And these feelings do not inevitably fall to the right. 

In the recent two General Elections in the UK, there was widespread support for radical changes in the economy. And despite the defeat of the Corbyn led Labour Party in the 2019 General Election, smothered as it was by a huge deluge of slander, internal divisions and intense media hostility, 10 million voters (following 14 million voters in 2017) supported the democratic nationalisation of all public services - including the Internet and a range of deeply radical policies. This was topped by the priority for a Green industrial revolution. In the UK, Ireland, now Italy and France, a sense of political unease is developing into left-alternative action. The new right is powerful but they are far from winning. The next stage, post pandemic, will decide the issue - through a struggle in society about the coming recession hitting jobs and welfare. 

This letter is directed in the UK – to all those who want to build a platform for radical  change, turning our society away from the prospect of another terrible ten years. 

And the extraordinary development in the UK’s popular focus, now centred on the NHS, has shifted the connection of millions closer to this institution than any other in British society. The monarchy, the armed forces and other previously revered beacons of ‘Britishness’ have been overwhelmed. Westminster politics , the Church and the media have already fallen as in any way prime benefits of British society.  More significant in the new context are three shifts. First, the NHS is now understood as meaning the workers at all levels delivering health care in hospitals and the community, the great number of African and Asian heritage people and those who recently came across Europe and South Asia to join the NHS; these are the real NHS. The NHS has nothing to do with its scared Minister of Health or its system of managers. Second, the NHS, despite decades of cuts, privatisations and fragmentation, still offers a new version of how a very large institution can work brilliantly as it resists hierarchy in favour of team work; as it can be directly accountable to the public and as it can cut right through the so-called unavoidable economics of globalisation as well as the equally useless politics of Westminster. Third, the NHS, described by much of the British media as ‘the warriors of the front line’, are actually seen by most people as a million and a half or so of ordinary people, carrying out an extraordinary job.   

These changes in the self-organisation and decisions made by literally millions, for the collective aims of all, reflect a radical shift that will be a real first line of defence against the government’s intentions to recreate a new version of austerity 2 (whatever it turns out to be called.) This is a concrete base of an entirely different approach to society; how State forces can be used for peoples’ needs; how collective work and management can be so much more effective than our present arrangements; how the largest and most important requirements in society are achieved without the slightest need for profit.

For these reasons, the writers and supporters of this open letter call on any and all radical parties, unions, organisations and movements to prepare a common bloc which brings together all of those who can and will act and resist Austerity 2 that is being prepared for us. It is vital to break from our lame and dangerous system when it is obvious that we have a life-giving alternative.  

After Coronavirus

Gradually (too gradually?) the left in the UK are trying to work out what to do after Corbyn's defeat. Coronavirus has seemed to complicated the picture. Very little has so far surfaced by way of developing a new perspective for the left and, more importantly, the future of the working class. However, in reality the Coronavirus has also clarified politics in the UK. But caution and traditional thinking among the left organisations still abides.

So far, two movements in the UK, originating from a sizeable and active political left, have presented their ideas that might lead to radical progress. (There is also an internet-full, re-hashed, well-used options, old ideas and ancient slogans!)

Momentum, perhaps hit most after Corbyn's defeat, has been publicly struggling with its future. It is a substantial organisation with strong networks to students. However, there has been a split in its 40,000 membership. The new, significantly smaller 'Momentum Forward' is trying to move away from the previous Momentum priority that was given to focussing on leftish sets of values (that turned out to be easily reiterated by Kier Starmer in his leadership campaign.) MF is trying more to build socialism around political positions (and preferably outside the universities).

The main Momentum was created to support Corbyn's leadership, including the renovation of the Corbyn led Labour Party. But Corbyn has gone and the continued reform of the Labour Party is doubtful. So far, the old Momentum has only been able to produce a narrow and cautious response, focussing not so much on how to find a way to win Corbyn's Manifestos in the here-and-now, but rather proposing to start from the priority of an internalised LP pressure group. Momentum wants to put pressure on Labour's new leader, someone who regularly opposed Corbyn, to carry out Corbyn's policies.

These are Momentum's most recent 'Strategic Objectives': Elect a socialist Labour government: Transform the Labour Party: Build a social movement: Train activists and build a new leadership at all levels of the party: Build a sustainable organisation. The absence of defined socialist political positions and their action in society in the here and now, is painfully obvious.

The new Momentum is yet define its own activity or draw up any new policies.

The Peoples Assembly, an action based alliance that consistently fought austerity, contains various political strands. And this includes a current that, after critically supporting Corbyn's plans and policies, now considers that the organised action of the working class is the decisive route to radical political progress. The Labour Party is no longer any sort of centre for significant change - and is rapidly becoming its exact opposite.

The direct action of the Assembly has been a significant and broadly non-sectarian force. And has helped build political moments and actions that promoted the shift in working class politics towards the Corbyn manifestos in 2017 and 19. The weakness of its choice turning its back on Labour is that it is not a decision that is carried by the vast bulk of working class people. This is not to deny the rapidly rightward shifting leadership of Labour Party or the central significance of direct action and mass movements, independent of Parliament. But it is to understand that huge numbers of left leaning people see supporting Labour and taking action for their rights at the same time as the reality of politics. Small left groups do not define popular left understanding.

Here we come to the real problem of building a new-left, post Corbyn and post Coronavirus.

The reaction to the Corbyn Manifestos in 2017 and 2019; 14 million in '17, 10 million in '19, remains the real and only platform to rebuild the left - including through mass action. The 10 million who voted Corbyn in 2019 did so under the worse conditions and most savage attacks on any political leadership since the General Strike in 1926. The media fought Corbyn and his manifesto; all the other parties focussed against Corbyn; the vile and continual personal attack on Corbyn by a huge alliance of some Jewish and many other organisations; and the constant sabotage by Party officials, regional Party full-timers and more than a 100 Labour MPs - all failed to stop 10 million voters voting for Corbyn and his Manifesto.

This is the force, despite its setback in a twisted election, that could win a whole new, post-coronavirus, society.

The 2017 extra 4 million for Corbyn can align with the 2019 Corbyn voters now that Brexit is settled. The ideas of the Corbyn Manifestos can be reconstructed as a reply to Boris's inevitable attack on working class people as 'the only answer' to getting the economy going. This means using the state to nationalise all utilities and services. It means building democratic leaderships appointing relevant experts. It means a huge investment focus on a Green Economy (and not the poisonous elites driving the City of London towards its Singapore-on-Thames.) It means a public free Internet platform and most important of all, the control, via a national Bank of England, of all UK banks.

The serious political movements from the left - whether from the left of the SNP, from the Greens, from left organisations, inside or outside the Labour Party, from unions inside and outside the TUC and from campaigns - can form a bloc. Its purpose would be to overwhelm all those who want an economy re-organised to defend the future of the rich, including dumping all the Labour MPs who are now literally savouring the idea of the next 'national government'.

This non sectarian bloc can draw together the millions that voted for radical change. Just as the response to the fire in Grenfell temporarily overwhelmed May's government, so a new bloc gathering the millions who have already made their political mark, can, in the wretched Tory conditions of post coronavirus crisis, overwhelm the latest version of the old society and take the country's leadership to something new.

The UK after coronavirus

A friend in the Labour Party talked to me recently (via zoom) about post coronavirus politics. She said that the tremendous efforts by the NHS staff and other carers, including those working in care homes but spreading much further, from dustbin workers to supermarket staff, meant that Boris's Tory government would have to accept at least some sort of mild social democratic - Keynsian approach in the coming years. After the corona experience, my friend thought that the big majority of people would simply not accept another austerity regime. The role of the state, even under the Tories, had dramatically proved its usefulness to British people, which would also restrain the Tories' traditional 'anti-state' mantra.

It sounds inviting. But a great contradiction is already emerging across British politics - and economics. Here, for example, is one small indication that begins to open up what really happens next.

George Osborne, Chancellor under ex-Prime Minister Cameron, and now the editor of the London Evening Standard, enjoys his often stated claim that the current spending programmes, under Chancellor Sunak, are only possible because he, Osborne, imposed austerity and 'fixed the roof while the sun was shining.' The truth is the complete opposite. (See LRB., 16 April.)

Everybody in Britain knows (except Osborne) that the NHS was on its knees before coronavirus. It had had no investment program for staff or for equipment for a decade. The Nuffield Trust (8/5/2019) pointed out 80% of nurse vacancies were covered by temporary staff. 1 in 12 posts were vacant in hospital and community services. There were 40,000 adverts for nurses. The OECD put the UK as 20th for nurses, behind Slovenia, the US, Ireland, Iceland, and of course France and Germany. The UK was 22nd for doctors per patients. As a result, when the coronavirus struck, the government had first to take desperate measures to close the gap created by its own previous policies. The government scrapped the £35 billion debt from its own service and bought 10,000 nurses from private hospitals. That, at least temporarily, covered the Tory hole in Osborne's roof.

And that was just one, result of austerity Britain. Many British companies were already against the wall before corona. Britain's economy remains dominated by the City of London; the main funnel for selling international wealth across the globe - and for sheltering corporate wealth in the mainly British-held tax havens. Many British regions have collapsed. Investment in the UK is the lowest and slowest in comparison with both the EU and the US.

But does the present change the future? Will Boris's Tories' now shift their anti-state orientation? How will the developing contradiction between major state action today and the next 4 years rebuilding the economy, via profit and private ownership, develop?

First we need to look more carefully at the Tories' spending today. By far the largest chunks of Sunak's largesse are formed by the offer of loans - loans to major corporations in the main, but the vast number of small businesses are also offered rent. When it comes to workers, Sunak's famous furlough amounts to about £7 billion. It was late in delivery (end of April) and stops in June. The desperate bridging for the NHS's collapsing structure (roughly £35 billion) like the furlough, could not be a loan. But most of the rest of Sunak's offers are made of loans. We are far away from President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal.

There are the previous Tory promises in the 2019 General Election regarding new Hospitals and new railway development into the North. And they remain essential given the public support for the NHS and the catastrophe of Britain's railways since privatisation. But other than these very late actions, the only other major economic offer to the UK people is a trade deal with Trump.

So can Boris and his playmate Cummings dream up a new Tory austerity?

Austerity 1 has clearly failed, but its title can easily be changed. George Osborne can be stuffed away into history. The real energy that the Tories, under Boris and Cummings, will end up using (and creating Austerity 2 in all but name) has three faces. Boris (and Cummings) are now considering their words carefully.

When Boris says ( No 10 Speech on his return from hospital) that he wants to 'work together with opposition parties' it is because he wants to develop a shared outlook in relation to the economic steps he will need take after coronavirus. He is fully aware of how close Corbyn's economic program came to fruition. Boris rarely fought Corbyn's economic program in 2019, he fought Corbyn the politician (along with every other anti-socialist forces.) Boris's effort to 'bring in' the likes of Keir Starmer is simply the means to extinguish for once and for all the remains of the alternative Corbyn program. Boris will require as much cross-party support for serious tax increases which will be focussed mainly on white collar and blue collar workers. It means agreeing to break the holy grail of locked pensions. And, following all the new right policies across the West, the big reduction of corporate taxes.

Second; the Tory duo are beginning to weave an ideological framework through the corona disaster that they have helped made worse They now stand for a new 'unity' that dealing with the illness has aspired. The constant application of the war-like battles - with a virus (!) - that Boris and his ministers spout is a new framework of the UK's potential social and political unity. Brexit is now completed. Britons are standing together supporting 'the front line.' Re-building the victory is the cause now. And in case you need a diverting enemy to keep things together, you have no greater target than China!

Finally Boris will prepare for his answer to the state solutions so essential in 2020. Boris (and Cummings) will claim that the true dynamo of Britain's future economy already is and will be the huge emergence of small businesses. This will be delivered as the model for economic advance for everyone. Stirring this layer in society will start from the call to 'set free' those future entrepreneurs, to get the state (read important regulation) out of their hair, to reinforce the single-mindedness and individual enterprise that they require and provoke. Unravelling the grip of the EU bureaucracy, the Tories will now seek to tear down the deadly range of laws and rules that block enterprise. And start to build the Singapore-on-Thames - courtesy of the US trade deal.

In reality this will all suit the larger corporations. The rising tide has yet to elevate any boat - except the billionaires' yachts. And, at this moment, Labour's new leader shows every sign of signing up for the new austerity trip.