Venezuelan revolution: Chavez Say NO to NATO: celebrates election victory will the SNP do but he faces new challenges the right thing? • see page 11 • see page 12 £1 • issue 405 • 19th Oct - 1st Nov 2012 www.scottishsocialistvoice.net Better the devil ‘No’ camp want Scots to vote for you know ... ? more cuts by Ken Ferguson It was the Roman satirist Juve - nal who coined the phrase “bread and circuses” to describe the way rulers supplied basic food and big events to keep the population quiet. Over the past few months, his acolytes in the No campaign have been busily taking his ad - vice as the breathless pap of the royal jubilee was followed by the shameless Union Jack waving of the Olympics. And now, as previously pre - dicted in the Voice , the million - aires cabinet are laying their plans to use the centenary of the outbreak of the imperialist blood - bath of World War One in 2014 to boost their No message. No doubt unpalatable facts like the much higher proportion of Scots who died defending their regime of plunder and pillage, and whose names adorn count - less memorials from Wigtown to Wick, will be sidestepped. So far, they have scored some CAMERON’S MESSAGE TO SCOTS: PM says there’s no alternative to the misery of cuts and sackings success as shown in polls giving the No campaign a lead in the in - crafted Better Together cam - shadow of an economic crisis Like old fashioned blood let - dependence battle. paign’s case has started to unravel. which all of them - Labour, Tory ting surgeons, they all want to However the last few weeks Looming over the No cam - and Lib Dem - say can only be bleed the patient - only arguing have seen a series of events paign’s three-in-a-bed London solved at the cost of jobs, services about how much blood to take as through which the carefully party alliance is the growing and living standards. • continued on page 2 INDEPENDENCE Break with British failure PHOTO: Craig Maclean by Campbell Martin In The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists , published in 1914, Robert Tressell (real name Robert Noonan) described life for the working class in the late 19th century. Today, it is hard to contemplate the deep-seated levels of poverty and deprivation endured by men, women and children who worked themselves into early graves. The workers saw no improvement to their lives, but their employers, who did not work, grew ever richer. At the time the book was set, a fledgling socialist movement was beginning to spread across Britain, making the case for working-class’ rights and socialist representation in parliament. a better scotland is possible ! the ssp’s colin Fox addresses last month’s Yes scotland demo Indoctrinated meetings and chased them out – Tory, Labour, Liberal collapsed economic system; The response of the ruling of town, believing the line that Democrat – have united in a the certainty of soaring elite – the aristocrats and the workers needed the bosses to partnership to tell Scotland and unemployment; the certainty of bosses – was to issue be in control or there would be the Scots that we are too wee, large areas of multiple pamphlets warning the workers no work and ‘their lives would too poor and too stupid to deprivation in towns and cities that if they voted socialist, their be hell’. govern ourselves. across Scotland; the certainty lives would be hell. Fast-forward just over 100 Our best bet, they tell us, is of cuts to public spending and That message was years and the ruling elite are to remain within the British services we desperately need; addressed to people whose still in place, still exploiting the Union and continue to be the certainty of continuing child lives already were a living hell working class, and still using governed by and from poverty; the certainty that under the capitalist system, but the same line of argument. Westminster (with a devolved many of our elderly citizens will many were so indoctrinated by In 21st century Scotland, we parliament in Edinburgh that is die over the next few months the power of the wealthy that stand on the brink of re-taking entirely answerable to the because they are poor and they actually broke-up socialist our political independence, of British parliament in London). can’t afford to pay the gas and securing the right to govern our electricity bills from profit- The Wee Red own country in the interests of Certainty driven, private utility Bookshop the people and of representing Despite independence being companies; the certainty that Books, T-shirts, ourselves on the world stage. the normal status for most young Scots will continue to be ideas to change the In other words, we are about nations in the world, the sent to kill or be killed in illegal, world! All at very to vote on whether or not we Unionists tell us that, for immoral, imperialist wars. reasonable prices. want Scotland to be a normal, Scotland, it would result in us Independence is simply 137 London Road, independent country. But still “sending our children to a being a normal country. Glasgow. Phone for the ruling elite, the capitalists, deeply uncertain future”. We have nothing to fear from opening info, or if the bosses, the bankers, the The message is clear: vote governing ourselves and you can donate British Unionist political parties for independence and our lives building a better, fairer books, we can tell us that if we vote for will be hell. Instead, the Scotland. It is remaining in the arrange for them independence it will be ‘a Unionists tell us we should stay British Union – 300 years of to be picked up. disaster’ for Scotland (our lives with the certainty of the making life hell for the working will be hell). capitalist-run British State. class - that is the scary The British capitalist parties That is the certainty of a prospect. 2 • Scottish Socialist Voice • issue 405 independence reject the no campaign’s cuts agenda by Colin Fox goes up claiming that we can - services and offer hard times paign’s drive for independence. not afford travel concessions as far as the eye can see. We want independence to open Behind all the Better To - for older people. Yet again a It is no surprise then that the way to a new Scotland gether campaign’s anti-inde - system backed by the London Labour, Tories and spineless which uses our wealth skills and pendence scares, one truth No parties. Lib Dems all not only sing from talent to end poverty, tax the fat they don’t want to discuss is There are many other exam - the same hard times song cats, break with foreign wars that staying with Britain signs ples of this truth but the basic sheet but are slashing services and nuclear weapons, putting you sign up to the worst reces - message is plain: all that the locally and nationally. peoples interests before the sion in 80 years, sackings, cuts much hyped No campaign of - The SSP is unwavering in our greed of a few. This vision of a and slashed benefits and pay. fers is a set of policies which resolve to defend jobs, services new Scotland is gaining more That’s why, elsewhere in this pamper the rich and drive down and communities while at the and more support - and its a vi - Voice , we put the case for benefits and pay, slash vital same time backing the Yes cam - sion worth fighting for. workers to both fight the cuts and back independence. As we go to press, the an - nual ritual of inflation-busting gas and electricity prices hikes has opened as one energy firm after another expose the fable that they are in competition as they play leap frog to increase power bills and their obscene profits. A system backed by the London No parties. The chaos on our privatised railways grinds on as the pub - lic suffer a double mugging of taxpayer subsidies to rail firms and prices among the highest in Europe. Again a system backed by the London No par - ties. As taxpayer bankrolled bus profits flow into the coffers of privatised owners they chorus usual suspects: unholy alliance of labour, tory and lib Dems want scots to back their recession per cent of voters will prove a win - the Westminster gang of three is de - Better the devil you know .. .? ning plan. Even arch Thatcherite termined to manage the burgeoning • continued from page 1 city and the banks that their cash is and Tory hatchet man in her cabi - economic crisis in the interests of the patient grows ever weaker. safe as they plan a further £10bil - net Michael Forsyth criticised it in the rich and will make the rest of us To justify this dictatorship of the lion assault on welfare. Bidding ea - an interview with Andrew Neil. pay. As this hits home - 80 per cent rich, they are running a relentless gerly for best supporting act to the Not to be outdone Johann ‘put- of cuts are still to bite - the ability of propaganda war to mug the victims Tory duo, step forward next leader the-gas-bill-in-the-drawer’ Lam - the No men to portray Britain as the of the bankers’ greed with slashed of the Scottish/North British toxic- ont, supposed-Labour leader in best option for an economic and so - benefits, frozen pay, sackings and Tories, Ruth Davidson. Scotland, continued her assault on cial future will steadily decline. slashed services.