Editorial: Ninety nine percent of politics is crap! (1995)

Editorial from the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Millions of people today are angry. Angry that nobody listens as they continue their daily struggle simply to exist. Angry that the professional politicians who seek their votes once every few years seem more concerned with their own welfare, and that of those like them, than with the lives of ordinary people. Angry that while the problems that beset society get worse, nobody does anything about it. The politicians make promises, of course—but then again, they always did.

Disillusionment with the major parties is rife. Who really believes that a Labour government would be any better than a Tory one? People may hate the Conservatives and all they stand for, but they have little confidence in Labour either. They remember all too well that the last Labour government saw unemployment double, inflation take off, and real cuts in social services expenditure together with falling real wages.

The Labour Party, like the Tories and Liberal Democrats, don't really listen and certainly don't learn. They offer nothing today which they haven't offered before in some shape or form, and which only brought failure in the past. No matter which party or parties have been in office, the problems have continued—class division, unemployment, poverty, environmental destruction, war and a whole host more.

The truth is that on their past records alone none of the political parties which dominate politics today deserve the support of the majority in society who have to work for a living, or exist on benefits. They are all a standing joke. The trouble is that the joke is really on us. For as long as they rule, insecurity of life and today's social problems will continue to exist. This is because the system which puts the wealth and power of the privileged before the needs of the majority will still be intact. In the market economy—whether free market or with state regulation—profits always come first and the interests of wage and salary earners a poor second.

We think that it is time to tell the politicians that enough is enough and that they—and the system they uphold—are not needed any more. A real social democracy, where production is for use not profit and where the opportunity for real democratic participation will exist, is up for grabs if a majority of us want it. Do you want real social change badly enough to want to do something about it? The Socialist Party does—perhaps you owe it to yourself to find out a bit more about us.