austerity
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UK local government spending will have fallen by a third by 2015 By Barry Mason
Local government spending in England (excluding police, school and housing benefits) will have fallen by nearly 30 percent in real terms between 2008 and 2015. Spending in Scotland will have declined by 24 percent. Continue reading
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Britain: Disabled widow commits suicide after benefits withdrawn By Mark Blackwood and Paul Mitchell
Despite being partially sighted, only able to walk with the aid of a cane and in constant pain due to slipped discs, Jacqueline Harris, a 53-year-old former nurse from Bristol, England, was pronounced fit for work in November 2012, following a government Work Capability Assessment (WCA). Continue reading
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UK food poverty a ‘public health emergency’, say leading experts
“This has all the signs of a public health emergency that could go unrecognised until it is too late to take preventive action,” said the letter, co-signed by six leading public health experts, and addressed to the prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ). A group of high-profile academics has written an open letter warning that food… Continue reading
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Britain’s poorest summonsed to court to pay council tax arrears By Allison Smith
In London’s Labour Party-controlled Southwark borough alone, more than 5,000 residents were summonsed to court in October and forced to pay past due council tax plus court fees. In the Labour-controlled borough of Brent, 3,500 summonses were issued to the poorest residents. This is being repeated across the country. The Citizen’s Advice Bureau in Hull… Continue reading
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Denied work, Britain’s poor have become ‘untermensch’ By Tony Gosling
Millions of hardworking families can no longer afford a social life, shoes for their children, to go swimming or to the cinema. Not satisfied with their seventh home, brace of sports cars and servants, the rich are paying Tory politicians, press and the City to grind the faces of Britain’s poor into the dirt. Continue reading
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Politics as spectacle By William Bowles
Failing a real left in this country, it seems that political activity has devolved into little more than spectacle, something implausibly akin to the Olympics or the Queen’s birthday (but without the exposure or corporate support or even the commitment that money buys). The BurnAusterity one day campaign typifies this corporatized and extremely fragmented approach… Continue reading
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#BurnAusterity: Join a ‘Bonfire of Austerity’ action near you
Tomorrow’s [Nov 5] ‘Bonfire of Austerity’ looks set to be one of the biggest days of action for many years. Actions are taking place up and down the country as people are forced into poverty, forced to choose whether to heat the home or put food on the table and forced into the hands of… Continue reading
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Video: Instead of Recovery British Economy Shows Signs of Stagnation
John Weeks: “British Press tries to vindicate austerity and budget cuts as “signs of economic recovery.” Continue reading
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Labour-controlled Welsh Assembly carries out massive attack on the National Health Service By Mark Blackwood and Ajanta Silva
The Labour Party-controlled Welsh Assembly has carried out a massive attack on the National Health Service (NHS), entirely in line with the UK Conservative-Liberal Democrat government’s austerity agenda. Continue reading
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Video: Portugal’s Architect of Austerity Resigns After Nationwide Protests
President Silva’s austerity policies made Portugal a darling of the troika, but highly unpopular at home (inc. transcript) Continue reading
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Video: Portugal's Architect of Austerity Resigns After Nationwide Protests
President Silva’s austerity policies made Portugal a darling of the troika, but highly unpopular at home (inc. transcript) Continue reading
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Britain’s People’s Assembly covers for Labour and trade unions By Paul Mitchell and Robert Stevens
The “People’s Assembly Against Austerity”, held in London on June 22, was a desperate attempt to uphold the threadbare authority of the trade unions and to suppress any movement independent of them and the Labour Party. Continue reading
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Mass austerity to be outlined in UK government spending review By Robert Stephens
WLGA director Steve Thomas commented last week, ‘We know that in England, in the first year of the cuts process in 2010-11, libraries were closed en masse, we saw leisure centres closed, we saw huge staff reductions across English local government—in total I think there’s been around 230,000 job losses. That carnage continues.’ Continue reading
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Workers in Britain suffer the greatest fall in wages since the 1930s By Robert Stevens
The UK is experiencing the deepest and most protracted economic downturn in a century. The decline in wages is even greater than that resulting from the Great Depression of the 1930s. Continue reading
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Worst cuts in wages for UK workers in ‘deepest recession since WWII’, IFS shows
Between 2010 and 2011, 70 per cent of employees who stayed in the same job fronted real wage cuts, while a third of those workers faced nominal wage freezes or cuts (12 per cent experienced freezes and 21 per cent experienced cuts). Continue reading
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Alter-Summit in Athens: A pseudo-left response to growing social opposition in Europe By Christoph Dreier
Last weekend, approximately 200 European trade unions, political NGOs (non-governmental organizations), charity groups, and feminist, environmentalist and pseudo-left groupings organized a so-called Alter-Summit in Athens. The meeting endorsed the institutions of the European Union (EU), with which union bureaucracies have worked closely in negotiating and approving austerity policies since the outbreak of the European debt… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 