Aware of the irony and absurdity that a party that calls itself the Labour Party should make the claim of being the business party, Tony Blair tried to explain that it was possible for Labour to be both the party of business and the party of the worker. If the workers' aim is emancipate themselves and the whole of society, to constitute themselves the nation and vest sovereignty in the people, to run the economy in a planned way so that the people's needs are the central concern, then such a thing is not possible. The workers need a revolutionary party that is at the same time a mass workers' party, but it hardly needs emphasising that this cannot be a party which is concerned to bolster its reputation as the party which has the endorsement of leading business figures. A Labour Party which is a Business Party standing against the aim of socialism would seem to be the biggest contradiction imaginable, yet this is what Tony Blair is claiming the Labour Party to be in order to get elected. The business strategy outlined in the manifesto is straightforwardly to focus on how the Labour Party will serve business in its second term.
Education is further to serve the needs of business.
Mergers, which up until now have been considered dangerous to the public interest as representing the trend towards monopoly, restructuring and the domination of markets, will, in a new enterprise bill, be removed from the political decisions of government ministers. This is to say, as is spelt out in the manifesto, that the regulators will take success in global markets into account as the primary concern in considering their expediency. There will be only a light touch from Whitehall when it comes to the information companies are required to give on director's pay. Inequalities A group of senior health professionals has warned that New Labour's plans to give the private sector a greater role in running the NHS would hit the care of the most vulnerable patients. We are keenly aware of the inequalities which inevitably result when private profits join health gain as the major goal of health services.