*Distract attention from the cuts, by stoking up racism

*Use arcane laws to break strikes (and indeed the government has indicated in the past few days that it wants to go down the road of making legal strikes anything from very difficult to impossible)

Use of racial and class stereotypes is reminiscent of the post WW I USA crackdown on anything to the left of 'mainstream' Republican or Democratic Party politics and employed the newly proven propaganda techniques of The Committee for Public Information, which had figured out how to silence those opposed to the war amongst the Irish and German immigrants during Woodrow Wilson's second term. And a large part of the appeal of Hitler and Mussolini to wealthy elites in the USA and the UK was due to the dispatch with which the fascists dealt with labor unrest. Thugs breaking strikes was a lot cheaper than increasing wages, benefits and working conditions from their point of view. Some things never change.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."