The Labour government was elected in 1997 with an overwhelming parliamentary majority of 179 seats. Until earlier this year Blair received high ratings in opinion polls and kept the lid on divisions within the parliamentary party. He had not lost a major vote at the annual Labour Party conference since becoming party leader in 1994.

Blair has pursued policies on behalf of Britain's wealthy employers and finance capital that have sought to weaken the power of the unions, curtail state spending on pensions and unemployment, and impose austerity measures under the guise of "fiscal responsibility." Among working people there has been growing disillusionment with the Blair administration as most of them consider themselves to be working harder and longer and with their future insecure; hoped-for improvements in education and the health service have not materialized.

One of the first chinks in his armor appeared with the election of Kenneth Living-stone as mayor of London. Livingstone, a longstanding Labour member of Parliament associated with the party's left wing, ran in opposition to Blair's hand-picked candidate and won hands down.

The power, effectiveness, and determination of the protests against rising fuel prices, as well as Blair's unsympathetic response to them in face of overwhelming support among working people, exposed the anti-worker policies of the government and its underlying weakness as well.

A public debate has opened as to whether Labour will win the next general election, which must take place before May 2002. On the eve of the Labour Party conference, opinion polls showed Labour trailing the Conservative Party, or Tories. Squabbles between government members have been publicly aired, at the center of which is a division between Blair and Gordon Brown, chancellor of the Exchequer.

Blair's personal ratings in opinion polls suffered another sharp drop, and the high esteem in which he has been broadly held by bourgeois commentators has cracked. In an opinion column in the September 20 Times, Simon Jenkins praised Blair for not giving in to the protests and safeguarding high fuel taxes. An editorial in the same paper castigated Conservative Party leader William Hague for not doing likewise, stating that Hague "insists that his party is ready for government. Alas, what he says--and does not say--is proving the opposite."

But the next day columnist Anatole Kaletsky observed, "There was a palpable sense last week that the Prime Minister had lost control. He seemed to have no idea how to cope with what should, after all, have been just a minor crisis. Rightly or wrongly, it looked like the country was saved from disaster only by the good grace and self-restraint of the lorry drivers and farmers. If the protesters had not gone home of their own accord, it seemed that the Prime Minister would not have known what to do."  
 
Drivers, farmers remain confident
The protesters ended the pickets September 14, threatening further action unless the government reduced taxes on fuel within 60 days. In keynote conference speeches both Blair and Brown sought to stand firm against the farmers and truckers.

But fuel protesters, who remained confident in the face of the government's weakness, have reiterated their threat of renewed action. Farmers for Action member Brian Parry, a dairy farmer from Raglan, Gwent, said of Blair's speech, "He didn't give any hope to us." Two tanker drivers at a petrol distribution center in Grays, Essex, who stopped their trucks to buy copies of the Militant, said they remained confident that if the need arose for renewed action its effects would be just as powerful as before.

Farmers and independent truckers, the driving force behind the protests, were emboldened by the widespread support they received from other workers and union members. A significant part of the increase in overall taxation since 1996-7--from 35.5 to 37.7 percent of the gross domestic product--comes from increases in fuel duty.

Despite its firm stand against the protesters, the government has been forced to move up the chancellor's pre-budget statement to the end of October, two weeks prior to the 60-day deadline announced by the farmers and truckers.  
 
Drive to end universal state pensions
At the Labour Party conference delegates defeated the platform in votes on rail safety, pollution, and pensions. The Blair government is driving to end the universal state pension--conceded by the post-World War II Labour government in the face of mounting working-class struggle--by introducing means testing. Blair also seeks to reduce the importance of the state pension by keeping its level low and shifting people onto private insurance schemes.

The current pension, available upon retirement, is £67.50 for a single pensioner and £107.90 for a couple a week (£=US$1.45). Older pensioners receive slightly higher pensions, with 80-year-olds receiving £86.05. Life expectancy in the United Kingdom is under 75 for men and under 80 for women. Government statistics state that some 2 million pensioners live in poverty, up 100,000 in the last year. There are 11 million pensioners in this country. In 1999 pensioners received a derisory 75-pence (US$1.09) increase.

Pensions would be 44 percent higher--£97.45 for a single pensioner, £155.80 for a couple--had the Thatcher government in 1980 not broken the link between pensions and earnings that had existed until then. A resolution backed by a number of trade unions called for the earnings link to be restored. Despite the limited nature of this proposal, Blair rejected it, saying it would be a "huge additional expense" for future generations. The Labour leadership put pressure on union leaders to drop the motion, but it was passed by the conference. The government then announced that it will not abide by the conference decision.

The government points to its introduction of the Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG), a means-tested mechanism that allows the poorest pensioners to claim a benefit increase to £78.45. In his speech to the Labour Party conference, Gordon Brown announced that the MIG is to be increased to £90, though he didn't say by when. According to the National Pensioners Convention, 500,000 pensioners, or one in four, entitled to MIG do not receive it.

Brown is also introducing pension credits designed to reward private pension schemes, rather than penalizing this system under the means test as is currently the case. The National Pensioners Convention calls for the basic state pension to be £140 per week.  
 
 
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