Many political commentators had forecast that Prime Minister Anthony Blair would be a lame duck in a third term, citing the government’s reduced parliamentary majority and the prime minister’s announcement that he would stand down before the next election. Following his reelection, however, Blair reshuffled his cabinet, declaring that the government would “focus relentlessly” on “people’s priorities”— populist buzz signaling preparation for an assault on social programs.

Blair loyalist David Blunkett was returned to the cabinet as work and pensions secretary to oversee this assault. Welcoming the appointment, Blunkett said, “The department has some of the biggest issues that the nation faces in terms of welfare to work, in terms of pensions, in terms of incapacity benefit; the £12.3 billion we now spend on housing benefit.” (£1 = $1.82.)

Andrew Adonis, Blair’s former education advisor, has been named the new schools minister. A former member of the Social Democratic Party, Adonis will push partly privatized “city academies,” which have freedom to use their budgets as they see fit, reducing state supervision through local education authorities to give parents a “choice.” Newly appointed health minister Patricia Hewitt will likewise extend the use of partly privatized Community Trust hospitals.

These projects in education and health are aimed at improving provision for the middle classes at the expense of working people and driving against wages and conditions of workers employed in the two sectors.  
 
Weak government
The government’s determination to push ahead with its course of offloading the effects of the crisis onto the backs of working people shouldn’t be confused with strength, however. The Blair administration has been weak ever since it gained office in 1997. One expression of that weakness is the very “welfare reform” at the center of its new legislative proposals.

Before gaining office eight years ago, Blair had promised to “think the unthinkable” about welfare, the euphemism used here to describe the rulers’ plan to slash the social wage. Blair appointed Frank Field to do the unthinkable thinking in 1997, but then squeezed him out—despite Labour’s huge parliamentary majority at the time—judging that his radical anti-working class measures were politically too dicey. What the government has not achieved—but that the ruling class needs—is driving the Labour Party’s legislative program today.

Even the less radical measures the government did adopt have cut heavily into Labour’s traditional electoral base. As hopes and expectations that a Labour government would reverse the effects of 18 years of the Tories were dashed, hundreds of thousands of workers abstained. According to the polling organization ICM, Labour has seen its vote among unskilled workers drop by 20 percent since 1997. Lower-paid workers are especially vulnerable to the erosion of the social wage.

Labour’s weakness has been masked by the absence of major labor struggles. Blair has also benefited from the long upturn in the business cycle—official unemployment is at 4.8 percent—which allowed the Labour Party to campaign on its “economic record.” Higher-paid, skilled workers perceived they had benefited from this upturn and stuck with Labour, attracted by its “stakeholder society” message that promised, at a time of economic insecurity, a better future and more choice for hard-working families. And in a move aimed at reinforcing this message, one of the first acts of the government following the election was to provide some (very precarious) funding for first-time house buyers.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown was given a high profile in the campaign, always at Blair’s side and widely touted as the person who will become Labour’s leader when Blair steps down.

Blair and Brown are the two leading architects of the New Labour project but have been rivals for the Labour Party leadership. Their main difference centers on what stance the government should take toward the European Union (EU). Both politicians favor London’s alliance with Washington. Blair, however, has also advocated “putting Britain at the heart of Europe,” including adopting the euro, which Brown opposes. During the election campaign Blair indicated that joining the euro would not be posed in the next Parliament. And after the no vote in France against the EU constitution Blair’s broader stance on the EU has been weakened. The day after the French vote, Blair indicated he might call off a similar referendum in his country that had been projected for next spring.

Riding the tide of a cyclical economic upturn cannot last much longer for the government, given the depression conditions spreading in world capitalism. The Office of National Statistics has announced that in March industrial output declined by 1.6 percent, the sharpest fall in three years. Government spending, which has contributed to the upturn, is to be cut back. Meanwhile, household debt stands today at 140 percent of disposable income. Any downturn will threaten the real estate bubble. Housing prices have shot up 50 percent since 2002.  
 
Tory Party crisis
Of more lasting duration is the crisis of the Conservative Party, the Tories, which had been the main party of British imperialism for over a century.

No longer a traditional conservative party with a substantial working-class vote, the Tories were transformed into a radical party by the “Thatcher revolution,” when then prime minister Margaret Thatcher took on the coal miners in open battle in the streets and defeated them, setting back the entire working class. But the Tories’ radicalism cost them votes—dropping from 14 million in 1992 to 9.6 million in 1997. This trend has continued. In the general election in May, despite winning more seats in the House of Commons, the Tories received less than 9 million votes.

In Scotland, where the weight of working-class resistance to the rulers’ austerity drive has been relatively greater, and where the Conservative Party is identified by working people as the main political instrument of national oppression by London, the Tories won just one member of parliament (MP); in Wales, three.

There is no way back to “one nation Toryism” for the Conservative Party, however. With the electoral victories of Labour, a party pledged to carrying out a similar anti-working-class course, the Tories have been unable to convince the ruling class that they constitute a better alternative.

The most authoritative big-business dailies, the Times and the Financial Times, called for a vote for Labour—however unenthusiastically—as did the Economist magazine. Conservative Party leader Michael Howard announced he will resign, which means that the party will have its fifth leader in a decade.  
 
 
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