Blue in tooth and claw

Other bloggers with cameras can show you pictures of this evening's rally (http://harpymarx.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/war-on-the-poor/) and yet others deserve a hat tip for beating me to the blogosphere with significant detail from this evening's meeting (http://unionfutures.blogspot.com/2010/10/start-of-fightback-persuading-general.html).

I have two points to add to the proliferation of online comment about the Comprehensive Spending Review.

First, this is the nature of the Tories, blue in tooth and claw. That's why the least organised and most vulnerable are being hammered with benefit cuts. That's why the spurious cover of "protected" health budgets is used to distract from an unprecedented attack on the NHS. That's why Council tenants are to bear the brunt of increased costs and reduced security.

They do this because they hate us. We should, at the least, reciprocate.

Secondly, given the plethora of anti-cuts initiatives (particularly at national level), it is essential that we show at least the unity of the Tories and their Liberal allies.

This is true whether you think that the Right to Work campaign (RTW) is an essential successor to the failure of the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) or believe that RTW is a sectarian party-building front organisation intended to wreck the positive work of NSSN.

This is also true whether you think that the Coalition of Resistance (CoR) is a timely united front rich with potential or believe that CoR was transparently inspired by unrelated, and perhaps contradictory examples of hostility to the SWP.

This is even true whether you believe that the Morning Star is a vital component of our collective resistance or instead see it as a sometimes tedious house journal for the remnants of global Stalinism.

At the risk of "labouring" the point I hope I have made clear that the challenges now facing our class require a response which is both militant and united.

That is the challenge before us.
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