The following appeal for solidarity was today made in a letter to the Guardian. It can be signed here. The people of Greece face an unprecedented economic and political crisis (Violence grips Athens, 13 February). They are being driven to poverty and mass unemployment by the demands of the so-called Troika. Hospitals in Greece are running [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Public Service Cuts’
As the cuts bite and growth stagnates, who will challenge our reckless bankers?
Feb 6th, 2012 by Ann Pettifor.The humiliation of Fred Goodwin may have appeased a public baying for vengeance, but has done little to fix the broken global banking system or reverse the Second Great Depression. But then the public have been given very little leadership as to how to address the causes of this crisis. Politicians, economists, central bankers and [...]
Does anyone seriously believe swallowing Tory austerity measures makes Labour credible?
Jan 29th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.There seems to be a plague going round the Shadow Cabinet, which is quite catching, the symptoms of which appear to be seriously muddled economic and political thinking. After several comrades went down with this malady over the New Year period, the bug appears to have re-surfaced again, to judge by yesterday’s remarks from the [...]
Minus 0.2 percent! Cameron can run but he can’t hide
Jan 27th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Cameron’s seeking to explain away yesterday that the national economy was now shrinking by 0.2% in the last quarter of 2011 won’t wash. He blamed high inflation, Labour ‘mismanagement’ and the eurozone problems. High inflation is irrelevant to a contraction of national output which is clearly down to lack of demand because of squeezed incomes. [...]
The cause of the slump is still misunderstood
Jan 26th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.The news that the public sector net debt has now passed the £1 trillion mark isn’t really news since it’s long been on track to reach £1.4 trillion by 2014. What is far more disturbing is that the government, in its obsession to cut the public sector deficit regardless, has completely ignored the impact this [...]
The real divisions in the Labour Party and what Ed should do about it
Jan 25th, 2012 by Jon Lansman.Most Labour party members are, above all, loyal to their party. They have a strong inclination to back their leaders, even when they disagree with what they’ve said or done. And disagree they did, by and large, when Ed Balls announced that “the starting point….is we’re going to have to keep all these cuts” and accept [...]
The real reason the polls are up
Jan 25th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Why are the Tories now standing at their highest polls since the election? This has of course given Ed Miliband’s Blairite enemies, both in the Shadow Cabinet and the PLP, the chance to dump on the leadership which is always the silver lining for them when there’s bad news. They like to claim that, given [...]
Welfare Reform Bill: why won’t anybody say it’s wrong in principle?
Jan 23rd, 2012 by David Osler.So many of London’s £1m-plus houses are occupied by workshy immigrant families of ten that whole swathes of Maida Vale have been transformed into vast welfare ghettoes, where Afsoomali has become the dominant spoken language on street after street. That, plus I understand that huge numbers of City Boys have jacked in all that private [...]
The postmodern payday lender
Jan 22nd, 2012 by Carl Packman.Recently it was revealed by McKinsey, the consultancy, that the UK debt to GDP ratio stood at 507% in the middle of 2011. Robert Peston reminds us that this is up from 487% of GDP in the second quarter of 2008, and, incredibly, from around 300% in 2003 – before the credit boom. Only Japan is more [...]
A call to arms
Jan 19th, 2012 by Owen Jones.For those who stand outside the austerity consensus, reading Len McCluskey’s column on Tuesday was like coming up for air. It is a cause of deep frustration that, as the Tories’ economic policies are shown to fail (in terms of jobs, growth, consumer confidence, economic inactivity and borrowing levels), the Labour leadership has moved to legitimise [...]
