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 [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Inequality’
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 [...]
No more will the super-rich escape scrutiny
Nov 1st, 2011 by Michael Meacher.How did the super-rich get away with flaunting the extreme and disgusting excesses of wealth for so long, without hardly a ripple of disapproval? And why is the issue now being propelled to the front of the political agenda, first by the August riots and now only 2 months later by Occupy LSX? Bookmarks Hide [...]
Labour – winning as the party of the bottom 99%
Oct 24th, 2011 by Lee Brown.The occupy movements across the world have already succeeded in focussing the debate on the huge disparities between the very wealthy and the “bottom 99%”. This slogan mainly reflects the immediate anger felt across society to how a crisis that originated in the financial sector is now driving down the majority’s living standards, through the [...]
James Wharton MP: the Tory who wants to cut dole
Oct 19th, 2011 by David Osler.Three quid is less than the price of a pint in most central London pubs. It’s just about enough to get a small salad in the subsidised canteen in the offices where I work. And coincidentally, it is roughly 5% of the top whack rate of Jobseekers’ Allowance, which currently stands at £64.30 for the [...]
