Len McCluskey Unite General Secretary addressed the Durham Miners Gala on July 9th. He said that it is time for the values of the decent majority of British people to triumph over the greed and deceit of the elite.
As the storm rages over the misconduct of senior New International executives, Len said that the cultue of greed and irresponsibility that has pervaded the top of British life must end.
he decried attempts by the government to terrify the British people into accepting attacks on their services and jobs or see this country fall to the same fate as Greece.
“The values embodied at the Durham gala of solidarity, community, equality and justice are not museum pieces. They have survived the onslaught of Thatcher and the patronising contempt of New Labour – and they will survive the attacks of the present pantomime-horse coalition because they are rooted in all that is best in our society.
Today’s economic crisis was made by corporate greed – so why is the solution savage cuts in pubic spending?
Who says this government has the right to privatise our NHS, to close our libraries and hospitals, to destroy our kids’ education and scrap home helps, to make the poorest public servants pay more and work longer for their modest pensions – all to get the big banks back on their feet again?
And then to try to scare us by saying that if we don’t swallow the austerity poison we could go the way of Greece.
This is utter nonsense from a privileged elite using crude terror tactics to disguise why they are taking apart our society.
The trade union movement is now the main force standing for a better Britain pushing for real resistance to this government’s onslaught on our services and our rights.
Now is the time for a clear economic and social alternative. Not the one being pushed by the Blairite undead which says learn to love the cuts and pits worker against worker by talking tough on immigration.
That is not our alternative. Ours says curb the power of finance to control our lives – and stop empires like Murdoch’s spiralling out of control. Ours says put a stop to job-destroying policies and sit-on-the-fence government. Ours demands we tackle inequality, which scars our society and condemns millions of children to lives of limited hope and opportunity from the moment they are born.
Our demand is greater than simply “stop the cuts”. It is also a demand to end the bankruptcy of the powerful – from the banks to the boardrooms – that is ruining our country.
To the Murdoch’s and their ilk let me tell you it is our values, those of the ordinary people of Britain, that will triumph. Your have abused you place in our lives, your days of greed and deceit are over.”
