cuts
-
#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
-
Waiting times at five-year high in British National Health Service By Mark Blackwood and Ajanta Silva
Waiting times for National Health Service (NHS) treatment now stand at a five-year high. NHS England, the public body charged with overseeing delivery and implementation of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, has revealed that 240,000 patients in England within the last 12 months have been added to the ever growing waiting list—2.9 million… Continue reading
-
UK Government moves to make it easier to shut hospitals without consultation By Caroline Molloy
Amendments tabled today to the Care Bill – due to have its third reading in the Lords on Monday – give the government or Monitor the right to order any hospital they like to ‘reconfigure’ – in other words, close – with little consultation, to benefit neighbouring struggling hospitals. Continue reading
-
People’s Inquiry – a grassroots vision for our NHS? By John Lister
Campaigners fighting hospital closures, cutbacks and the erosion of mental health and other services have years of bitter experience of presenting solid, evidence-based arguments in “consultations” that ignore them and press ahead regardless. I know. In almost 30 years, I’ve been there with them too many times. Continue reading
-
London Underground prepares mass closure of ticket offices By James Hatton and Paul Bond
Recent disclosures have again confirmed London Underground management is planning to close all its 268 ticket offices over the next two years. Around 2,000 jobs are expected to be lost during that period, with job losses across the rail and underground network rising to 6,000 by 2020. The job losses are part of Transport for… Continue reading
-
The Absent Voices of the Imperial War Museums By Shah Jahan
Ninety-three years on, the Imperial War Museum now spans five branches and has a remit of covering all the conflicts that have involved Britain and the Commonwealth since the First World War. The main branch of the Imperial War Museums, IWM London, has been closed for six months in preparation for next year’s WW1 centenary… Continue reading
-
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
-
UK government set on deeper cuts to welfare By Julie Hyland
Earlier this week, Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps said unemployed parents should only receive benefit for their first two children, meaning entitlement to child benefit and/or income support and other financial aid could potentially be removed for any children above that number. Continue reading
-
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
-
The Other Elephant in the Room: Funding public interest news By Justin Schlosberg
As we reflect on the post-Leveson political furore, it is worth recalling Stuart Hall’s maxim that it is the way in which public problems are defined – rather than their proposed solutions – which exemplifies the exercise of real power in advanced capitalist democracies. Continue reading
-
Immigrants to be charged for non-emergency health care in Britain By Jordan Shilton
The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has revealed plans that would compel general practitioners (GPs) to refuse to treat “ineligible” immigrants on the National Health Service (NHS) unless the immigrants have paid a £200 annual charge. Behind the proposal to charge immigrants to access the NHS is the drive to completely eliminate free access to public health… Continue reading
-
Audio: The NSA Comes Recruiting
The NSA came to recruit at a language program at the University of Wisconsin where I am spending my summer learning a language. Two recruiters, a redhead who looked more like a middle-aged mother (listed as “NSA_F” below) and a portly, balding man (“NSA_M”), began to go through slides explaining the NSA and its work. Continue reading
-
Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Will Not Capitulate (I) By Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR
The narrative we hear is far too simplistic. It goes something like this: an elected government turned out to be not only inept but arrogant and crudely insensitive toward the imperative need of inclusive democracy; a stagnant economy; rising prices; fuel shortages; power cuts – discontent is boiling over. Continue reading
-
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
-
Everything you wanted to know about the NHS crisis, but were too afraid to ask By John Lister
Since 2000 successive Westminster governments have used it as a test-bed for experiments with untried “reforms” aimed to transform it from a public health care system into a “market” – little more than a fund of taxpayers’ money to buy services from a range of public and private providers. Continue reading
-
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
-
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
-
UK-NHS: Traitorous trade union actions! By Ellis Wynne
Unite trade union, in collaboration with health managers, has forced through pay cuts of up to £6,000 a year against 60 pathology staff at Salford Royal Hospital National Health Trust Laboratory. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 