Tag: cuts

#BurnAusterity: Join a ‘Bonfire of Austerity’ action near you

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4 November 2013 — Change:How?

[How indeed? I’m not sure what to make of this stuff frankly. The major sponsor is the Observer newspaper! They seem to come out once a year, talk a lot and then disappear until the next crisis comes along. It’s all slick PR stuff, no doubt pro bono work from a mind-fucker but what does it all mean and does it lead anywhere?  I mean really, “pin the blame on Cameron”? But not on capitalism? Burn your energy bill? I despair WB]

Tomorrow’s ‘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 legal loan sharks.

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People’s Inquiry – a grassroots vision for our NHS? By John Lister

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14 October 2013 — Our NHS

As the NHS groans under cuts and chaotic reorganisation, government bodies are calling for yet more ‘radical change‘ and ‘difficult decisions’. Will their answers be hospital closures and privatisations? The new People’s Inquiry is calling for evidence to support a different way forward. 

London Underground prepares mass closure of ticket offices By James Hatton and Paul Bond

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3 September 2013 — WSWS

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 London (TfL) and London Conservative mayor Boris Johnson’s £7.6 billion cuts programme to the London transport budget.

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The Absent Voices of the Imperial War Museums By Shah Jahan

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13 August 2013 — New Left Project

The brainchild behind the Imperial War Museum, Sir Alfred Mond, said on its launch in June 1920: ‘The Museum was not conceived as a monument of military glory, but rather as a record of toil and sacrifice.’ Though he dedicated it to ‘the people of the Empire, as a record of their toil and sacrifice through these fateful years’, the Museum’s Board of Trustees was filled with British government appointees and a handful of representatives from colonial and dominion  governments. The ‘people’, whether of the Empire or Britain, had no say in how their toil and sacrifice was depicted. Continue reading →

UK government set on deeper cuts to welfare By Julie Hyland

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20 July 2013 — WSWS

Britain’s Conservative Party has set out plans to escalate the government’s assault on welfare.

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.

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The Other Elephant in the Room: Funding public interest news By Justin Schlosberg

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9 July 2013 — New Left Project

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. 

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Audio: The NSA Comes Recruiting

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2 July 2013 — Mob and Multitude

Some students and I had an exchange with NSA recruiters today. The audio and a rough transcript below.

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.

2013 NSA flyer copy

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Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Will Not Capitulate (I) By Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR

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3 July 2013 — Strategic Culture Foundation

Egypt is on the brink, and, paradoxically, it is probably going to continue to remain that way in the near term. 

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. 

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