In a speech on 14 January, Labour's Ed Balls said he supported the spending cuts imposed by George Osborne and fully endorsed his public sector pay freeze.

There has been criticism from some in the Labour Party, and in trade union circles, because the two Ed's (Miliband and now Balls) are increasing behaving like David Cameron and George Osborne.

History has clearly and repeatedly shown that its utterly pointless placing hope in Labour governments to bring about a change for the better. Likewise other parties and leaders who claim that they can manage capitalism better than everyone else.

What's actually required is completely changing the economic structure of society. Replacing the outdated and clapped-out capitalist profit-markets-money economic system with something radically different and superior. If the existing economic and social arrangements continue, then it is a matter of small account whether the administration in charge of UK Capitalism PLC is Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green, BNP or eurosceptic.

Many people, seeing this, have come to believe that 'political parties are all the same' and that 'politics is a sham' and not worth while. Nothing could be more mistaken. Politics which consists of sitting back waiting for Party leaders to put things right - that kind of politics is indeed useless; but political action directed to achieving, in a democratic way, a fundamental change in society, is a very different matter. Moneyless real socialism most certainly is worthwhile and can be achieved.