Britain: Queen's speech announces pro-business anti-worker legislative agenda World Socialist Web Site
26 May 2010The Queen’s speech announced a Conservative Liberal Democrat legislative programme whose priority is to cut “the budget deficit and restore economic growth”. In plain language, this means boosting corporate profits at the expense of workers and their families beginning with the programme of an additional £6 billion spending cuts announced Monday.
The Queen unveiled the new government’s proposals in the House of Lords on Tuesday, saying, “My government's legislative programme will be based upon the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility”.
“Freedom” means the corporate sector’s freedom to access new sources of profit, while working people assume ever-greater “responsibility” for their survival when out of work, sick or old. This is what is meant by “fairness”.
One of the new government’s most important measures is the introduction of a supposedly independent Office of Budget Responsibility. In future, the OBR, not the Treasury, will carry out the economic forecasts that underpin government economic and financial plans and the annual budget put before parliament. It will “advise” whether the government’s policies are likely to meet its targets. In effect, the OBR will determine whether the state can afford to pay for education, health or pensions and determine whether taxes need to rise to cover future bailouts for the banks.
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