Articles
Saturday, May 13, 2023
The wave of strikes currently still sweeping Britain has exposed not only the declining living standards of workers, especially in the public sector, but has also shone a light on the dire state of the NHS and other services. Just as cash wages have been decreasing so the social wage has also been under attack. One aspect is the housing crisis, which has grown since the sell-off of council housing under the so-called right-to-buy and the failure to build more social housing. Housing stock has gone to the private sector and been removed from local authority control - hived off to housing associations. The result has too often been poor quality and expensive accommodation, which is affecting the health and wellbeing of children and adults.
Friday, May 12, 2023
Successive governments have promoted home ownership over social rented accommodation. however, as prices have spiraled out of the reach of many ordinary people, schemes like "help to buy" were introduced. Ostensibly they support people to get into the housing market, but the current scheme contains hidden pitfalls which are leaving many worse off.
Thursday, May 11, 2023
The cost of building and repairing homes is rising faster than the rate of inflation. Labour, energy and materials all play their part in this, particularly since the start of the war in Ukraine. It could be different if there had been priority given to training a workforce for the building industry and without the excess costs and supply problems created by sanctions on Russia. Meanwhile, however, tenants are suffering.
Tuesday, May 9, 2023
Academy schools in England, although funded by the state, are not controlled by democratically elected councils. Rather the are answerable to boards of governors and shareholders. With this lack of public accountability and the intervention of the profit motive, there are concerning issues emerging regarding their culture and ethos.
Saturday, February 4, 2023
Trade union members are not only heroically battling on with their campaigns of strike action, they are now being joined by more groups of workers. contrary to government statements their wage demands are entirely affordable. There is a glaring contrast between the declining living standards of workers and the growth in profits of companies and in the wealth of billionaires. Refusing wage rises is, therefore, a political choice in favour of capital and against the working class, not an economic necessity.
Thursday, February 2, 2023
Whilst the fall out from the war in Ukraine has increased opposition to US policies in many parts of the world, the biggest, long-standing imperial powers have fallen into line behind its war aims. The UK has gone further than others in stoking up the war. After the United States it supplies the most resources to Ukraine, including vast amounts of military equipment. The UK’s active involvement not only extends to arms supplies, there are British troops deployed in the country and British intelligence is being provided to Ukraine. There are reports that Britain has been involved in major incidents such as the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines.
Monday, January 30, 2023
Though they managed to wriggle out of the crisis caused by Liz Truss’ disastrous premiership, the Tories still face multiple problems. The party remains riven by divisions. Simply allowing public services to fall apart and taking a confrontational stance towards strikers doesn’t seem to be going down well. Many more people support the strikes than oppose them, with striking nurses achieving over 60% approval ratings. There is an opportunity for the working class and the trade unions to take advantage of the Tories difficulties, to build greater unity of strike actions and campaigns and make gains.
Thursday, October 6, 2022
Liz Truss will be even worse than Johnson – however hard this might be to believe. Truss has already declared war on the trade union movement by proposing to bring in even more restrictive anti-union legislation which would make it virtually impossible to take legal and effective strike action. She has shown a total lack of understanding the threat from the cost of living crisis to working class people. She proposes to slash taxes, but without taxes there can be no hope of improving our collapsing public services, including the National Health Service, nor infrastructure which has been neglected over decades. The crisis facing the British people is, at least in part, a product of the Thatcherism that Truss seeks to emulate. She doesn’t even pretend to have a “levelling up” agenda and has expressed herself content that the rich will benefit far more from tax cuts than the poor.