Apart from assuring us that the government’s main objective was economic stability – the stability of the graveyard it seems in this government’s case – the only other significant things in the Queen’s Speech were what it didn’t contain, not anything it did contain. Nothing about housebuilding, an infrastructure bank, reviving manufacturing, boosting capital investment, [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Inequality’
Yes they’re all in it together
Apr 16th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.It’s a relief that even a City investor group (PIRC) is now challenging the accounts of Barclays, RBS, and HSBC, initially when the pay deal for Bob (greedy as Croesus) Diamond is put to the Barclays AGM in a fortnight’s time. It is proposed to pay him £17m, largely made up of an executive share [...]
Tory privilege
Apr 4th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Words that we will never hear again will continue to resonate the caustic hypocrisy of Tory politics. ‘We’re all in it together’, a piece of flagrant brazenness when it was first trailed by Osborne in 2010, has now become a millstone around the Tory neck. Everything they have done in the last two weeks contradicts [...]
Remploy: another privatisation scam?
Mar 10th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.The closure of 36, and ultimately all 54, Remploy sites is a first-order scandal. No less than 1,752 persons, almost all of them disabled, have been given notice by the government that they will lose their jobs within the next 3 months, at a time when unemployment is 2.68 million and rising, on the grounds [...]
A new class politics
Feb 20th, 2012 by Owen Jones.The recession has brought class inequality back into view by exposing the unjust distribution of wealth and power in Britain. Labour must tackle this with a new class politics of stronger trade unions and a more representative parliament. During the long boom of the nineties and noughties, it was possible to at least pretend class [...]
It’s not just bankers, it’s lawyers too
Feb 7th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.While bankers remain hate figure no.1, it is important to recognise that many other top occupations have joined the Gadarene charge to the trough. And it’s not just the board members and chief executives of the mega-corporations, who had a 49% increase in remuneration last year when the income of the bottom tenth rose just [...]
As Hester still gets £6m bonuses, the utterly destitute lose Social Fund
Feb 1st, 2012 by Michael Meacher.There are two different universes at Westminster, completely disconnected. One is about Hester who has sacked thousands and still presides over RBS languishing at a share price only half of what taxpayers paid for in the bailout, but who has already on top of his £550,000 salary (£10,575 a week) gained £11m in bonuses and [...]
Pay freeze to 2020 – unless you’re a banker
Jan 23rd, 2012 by Michael Meacher.By a striking coincidence turkey-fattening season in the City, otherwise known as bonus time, happens to be rolled out at the same time as the rest of the population is being told that the pay freeze, after last year’s big 4.2% drop in real wages, is now expected to last till 2020. However, for the [...]
What should the 99% do about the 1%?
Dec 7th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Yesterday’s OECD report which finds that income inequality has risen faster in Britain than in any other wealthy country since the mid-1970s is a wake-up call. The share of total national income held by the top 1% reached 14.3% in 2005, having doubled since 1970, and is almost certainly higher now, perhaps 16-17%. The position [...]
A widening social divide destroys prospects for economic recovery
Nov 24th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.The latest ONS (Office of National Statistics) figures on incomes tell a frightening story. Average earnings fell last year in real terms by 4.6%, a huge drop. Since UK median earnings are now £410 a week and inflation is now running at 5% a week, that represents a fall in disposable income of nearly £19 [...]
