Tories Follow

It is not just ordinary people who have been shocked by the French election result. Establishment politicians across Europe too have been shaken. These politicians agree the only solution to the danger of Le Pen is to unite behind Tory candidate Jacques Chirac in the election run-off on 5 May. Chirac is almost certain to be elected.

COUNCIL WORKERS in the Tory borough of Wandsworth struck for the day last week in support of a sacked colleague. They were demanding the reinstatement of Unison union branch secretary Sarbani Mazumdar.

The Tories think they can rebuild their fortunes by playing on people's fear of crime. Those fears have been fanned by the wave of crime stories in the tabloid papers. Papers like the Mail, the Sun and even the self proclaimed "socialist" Mirror have pumped out lurid tales of a country gripped by an epidemic of violent crime.

Union leaders exploded in fury at the Labour government last week. "The time has come for Tony Blair to stop bowing down to big business," said GMB union leader John Edmonds. Blair had launched a pamphlet on public services side by side with Chris Garnet. Garnet is chief executive of the GNER rail company and the brother of ex Tory health secretary Virginia Bottomley.

Home Secretary David Blunkett unveiled New Labour's latest crackdown on immigration, asylum and British citizenship last week. He won rapturous praise from Tory MPs for attacks on the ability of immigrants to speak English and on British people marrying partners from the Indian subcontinent.

"A new foreign policy" is how the Guardian's Martin Woollacott described George W Bush's chilling speech threatening war across the globe. Woollacott and fellow Guardian commentator Hugo Young are just two of those who backed Bush and Blair's Afghan war but are now shocked by the US's new global war drive. Even former Tory minister Chris Patten has spoken out.

Alan Clark, the Tory MP who died in 1999, is often portrayed as an eccentric, lovable rogue. Everyone agrees he was lecherous, rude and arrogant. But the general view is that his diaries are tremendous achievements, and that he himself was cheeky but irresistible.

And they dare to blame the workers

THE EARLY 1970s were years of working class militancy and resistance. The recently released cabinet papers from 1971 show how top government meetings were constantly concerned with what was happening on the industrial scene. They reveal that strikes played a key role in determining government policy. The Tory government and prime minister Ted Heath began with a clear strategy - to shift a greater economic burden onto the working class. They wanted to cut public spending.

INTERFERENCE BY the Tory press in the election for general secretary of the RMT rail union began even before the ballot papers went out this week. There was a torrent of stories at the end of last week directed against left wing candidate Bob Crow, who is currently an assistant general secretary.

New Labour is to pour public money into grammar schools in a move that John Major's Tory government would have been proud of. The government's schools minister Stephen Timms made the announcement last Sunday.

There is one fact that all the spin surrounding chancellor Gordon Brown's pre-budget statement cannot hide. Under New Labour investment in public services in Britain will only just reach the level it was at under John Major's Tory government-and that's after Brown's supposed major boost to public spending.