May Day greetings to all working people at home and abroad and especially to the 200,000-plus PCS members who are on strike in protest at their disgraceful treatment at the hands of what passes for a Labour government.
Government ministers, with Chancellor Gordon Brown at their heart, have chosen the public sector as their target to impress big business with their intent to force working people to pay the price of an emerging economic crisis.

The Chancellor, it will be remembered, showed his scorn for the trade union movement by announcing the slaughter of 104,000 Civil Service jobs in the House of Commons without any prior notice to their union.

Behind Mr Brown on that day, serried ranks of new Labour MPs guffawed, cheered and clapped at this example of “firm” government.

Civil servants, many of whom will have been lifelong Labour voters, must have looked on this spectacle wondering what planet these MPs imagined themselves to be on.

And there is no doubt that these people, who have sewn up their own salaries, expenses and pensions very nicely thank you, will back up the government on its assault on low-paid workers’ living standards.

Apart from job losses, Mr Brown is imposing a pay rise of just 2 per cent, which, because of rising inflation, amounts to a cut in purchasing power.

It’s not as if Britain was a poor country and could not afford better living standards for working people.

Trade unionists celebrating May Day must wonder how it is that, in the fourth-richest country in the world, we have the worst wealth distribution in Europe, the worst childhood poverty in Europe and the highest military spending in Europe.

And, in two days time, working people will be urged to show their class loyalty by voting Labour in Scottish parliamentary, Welsh assembly and some English local elections.

Many will refuse to vote for those who sack them, price them out of housing, cut their living standards and send their sons and daughters to fight imperialist wars.

Others will continue to vote Labour, because of good local candidates or specific policies such as the abolition of prescription charges by the Welsh National Assembly – or simply to keep out the Tories.

But, without a drastic change in Labour government policies, how long will this last?

Public-service unions UNISON and GMB plan to meet to discuss arrangements for balloting their members on a new Labour leader. Very good – affiliated trade unions should play their part in the workings of the party they set up.

But, unless there is a real political choice when the leadership election takes place, there will be the same new Labour diet of job cuts, privatisation, lower living standards and war.

The unions must not only champion more progressive policies but also put pressure on MPs to eschew a coronation in favour of supporting the nomination of John McDonnell to enable an alternative socialist approach to be considered.