For the last few days Prime Minister Cameron has been full of himself. Having exercised the veto in Europe, he has been receiving fulsome praise from ultra-right wing Tories and the gutter press for “standing up to Europe.” On Wednesday the real world returned with the announcement of shocking new unemployment figures.

The new total unemployed figure of 2.64 million represents a 17-year high with youth unemployment now standing at 1.03 million. The national rate of unemployment now sits at 8.3 percent and rising. Within these figures hides even more damming statistics. Sections of society such as youth, women and middle-aged workers are facing an above average level of unemployment with very little chance of getting a job. Indeed women, with an unemployment level of 1.1 million, are in the worst situation they have been in since 1988. All experts accept that these figures will continue to rise in 2012.

What did Cameron have to say about this? “Bad news” was the glib response. Employment Minister Grayling added that the situation was “stabilising.” A statement which had about as much basis in reality as someone on The Titanic noting that the ship was just taking on a bit extra ice for the drinks cabinet.

With the usual platitudes about pushing for the private sector to create new jobs to replace those lost – something that is clearly not happening anytime soon – the Tories have signed off on this quarter’s figures.  Merry Xmas everybody is the message from Number 10!

The grim truth is that the private sector has little confidence at present in the UK economy and the bosses are therefore keen to just sit on their – well ours. actually – cash rather than expand, "creating" new jobs. Manufacturing industry knows that Europe will punish them for Cameron’s veto in defence of the banks and financiers. No wonder the normally loyal CBI and other bosses organisations had little to say about the veto and the resulting rebuff from the European leaders.  Cameron thinks that the City and the finance houses produce wealth but in reality they do not. They are just glorified casinos gambling away for easy profits at our expense. However, Marx explained a long time ago that finance capital would dominate over manufacturing and this is certainly the case with the Tory Party. Financiers, bankers and share traders run the party and have done so for many decades. Now they are calling the tune.  The fact that Cameron had no problem with the Europe-wide imposition of cuts has gone unnoticed by the gutter press. He also has no problem with measures designed to save the unsaveable – the euro’s problems can, at very best, only be deferred.  He thought he could stuff his stuff like Thatcher and get a result he could take back to placate the extreme right-wingers who now dominate the ranks of the party in Westminster.  He was wrong and the bluff was called. Now he is stuck back in Britain with bedfellows who still do not trust him and will still plot to replace him at the first opportunity. They will now demand more and more of him over the coming months.  The Lib Dems meanwhile are trapped sitting on an ever more unstable fence. No wonder they continue to fall in the opinion polls. Meanwhile the crisis in Europe will not go away. Greece is now estimated to be 100 percent certain to default on their debt at some point.  Fear still grips the corridors of power in Brussels.  Any recent perceived opinion poll gain for the Tories will soon depart as workers again demand to know why they are having to pay for a crisis not of their doing.

Labour has attacked the latest unemployment figures as being a betrayal of a generation. Correct, but we must ask – what alternatives are the Labour leadership proposing? Very little is the answer. Rather than opposing the cuts they are offering the same but slower. Nothing about action against the banks either. Indeed, the self-serving FSA report into the crisis at RBS noted that the last Labour government had adopted a far too soft approach towards the banking industry’s lack of care over spending. Hardly a vote of confidence in the current finance team at the top of Labour.  The Labour leaders remain wedded to the old Blairite baggage of New Labour and are desperately hoping that a “more caring” capitalism will come to their rescue. However, the only thing that big business is interested in protecting is Rent, Interest and Profit – RIP for the hopes of the Labour leadership. The poor state of Labour in the latest opinion polls – albeit that these polls have been shaped by the jingoistic rantings of the right-wing press – is a reflection of the concern amongst working class people that Labour simply is not offering a real alternative to the policies of the Tory-led Coalition or indeed those of Europe and their paymasters at the European Central Bank. Labour must now break with capitalism and stand behind the clear programme of socialist policies. Pandering to big business will not work. We need the nationalisation of the monopolies, banks and finance houses under workers control and management to be the cornerstone of Labour’s programme from now on.  This is the way to force the Coalition out of office now and put Labour back in power. 

There is no solution to the problems faced by working people both here and in Europe under capitalism.  The EU is just a bosses club which acts in their interest alone. They have already sent the receivers into Greece and Italy and now want the rest of Europe to get down to some serious cutting whatever the consequences to working people.  It has nothing to do with real internationalism which will only be possible under a socialist federation of Europe. Whatever the bosses now do will be bad for workers, students, pensioners and the unemployed.

The only way forward is the struggle for socialist policies and a leadership prepared to fight for them. The unions and rank and file activists must mobilize around the fight for socialist ideas to become the property of the whole movement.