More than a century after the formation of the Labour Party, the party still remains rooted in the organised working class. Despite everything, the results of the recent general election confirm the ingrained support for Labour throughout the working class areas of Britain.

The draconian budget rolled out in June is only the first instalment in a five year programme of austerity to be inflicted upon the British people. The Tory-dominated government is telling us that the economy is in a hole. This is true. They are softening us up for drastic cuts in public spending, saying we can’t afford it and (in the words of Thatcher) that there is no alternative. This is a lie.

“Open for business.” These were the words spoken by chancellor George Osborne as he delivered the most vicious anti-working class budget for generations – a budget for big business indeed! Not since the slash and burn days of the National government in the 1930s, or indeed the Thatcher regime of the early 1980s, have so many cuts been presented in one day. Indeed in outlining a target of 25% cutbacks in many areas of government spending, the coalition has gone way beyond anything attempted by previous chancellors in office.

The news is full of the plans of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition to hammer the public sector in the interests of the ruling class. But “the best laid schemes of mice and men, go often askew,” as Robbie Burns wrote. This is precisely what happened to Ted Heath's government.

What has the banking crisis cost us all? Andrew Haldane of the Bank of England has tried to work it all out in a paper called ‘The $100 billion question’. As Socialist Appeal has pointed out many times the ‘banking crisis’ is really a crisis of capitalism, but for the time being we’ll stick with Haldane’s terminology.

The present Tory-Liberal coalition is preparing to launch a major attack on British workers. History shows that the British workers have always responded to such attacks with militant class struggle. One such example was the miners' strike of 1972, a rock solid strike that shook the Tory government and prepared its eventual downfall two years later in 1974.

Britain is heading for a showdown. The British establishment is taking stock of the situation. They are fully aware of the social crisis that is unfolding. The illusions of class harmony have evaporated. They consider that it is time that the working class learned its lesson that capitalism cannot afford any reforms. Counter-reforms are on the order of the day. The workers are therefore being sent to the school of the coalition government whose programme is “red in tooth and claw” austerity.

Ian Isaac’s new book, published on the 25th anniversary of the end of the 1984/85 miner’s strike, is essentially an autobiographical account of the St John’s Lodge of the National Union of Mineworkers during the late 1970s and ‘80s. Ian was the youngest Lodge Secretary in the NUM at the time, a South Wales Executive member and a supporter of the Militant newspaper and Labour Party Young Socialists. The book will be fascinating for any young socialists or trades unionists who are interested in finding out the truth of what happened during that great strike.

No sooner has the dust started to settle on the fall out from the 2010 general election and the decision of Gordon Brown to fall on his sword both as Prime Minister and Labour Party leader than we are already seeing names being put forward as “suitable” choices to become the new leader of the party.

It was one of the surest things in British politics: when an election comes around, no matter the national trend, Scotland will always vote Labour. But with the SNP managing to form a minority government, winning one more seat than Labour in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, and then their shock by-election victory in Glasgow east in 2008 it seemed, to some, that the Scottish working class was switching their allegiances. The SNP could now challenge Labour in its industrial urban heartlands. We explained then, as now, that the SNP gain only because of Labour's continuing failure to present the working people of Scotland (and the whole UK) with a Socialist programme.

It didn’t take long for the Liberal democrat leaders to understand that any principles they may have had are far less important than their own personal careers, and even less important than the needs of the market. All the election campaign rhetoric went out the window as they join a coalition with the Tories, whose task will be to carry out a draconian anti-working class programme.

Last week’s elections results have posed a dilemma before the British ruling class. They wanted a strong Tory government to introduce draconian anti-working class measures. The electorate denied them that pleasure. Now they are seeking to patch together some form of government that can guarantee them the same programme, but on a much more unstable base.

The British elections have produced a hung parliament, with no party winning an outright majority, precisely the opposite of what the ruling class wanted. They need a "strong government" to take on the working class in the coming period. That attack will come anyway, and the labour movement must prepare to fight back.

After a seemingly guaranteed Tory victory, now the opinion polls indicate that the coming elections could produce a hung parliament with the Liberal-Democrats holding the balance of power. The voters have not forgotten what the Tories did when they were in power but are also disappointed with Labour. This unprecedented volatility, is a reflection of the crisis of British capitalism, and a yearning for social change, that was denied after 1997.

The Liberal Democrats are riding high in recent opinion polls. They are presenting themselves as something “new” and “clean”. A closer look reveals a very old party that has always carried out the policies dictated by the capitalist class of Britain.