Trade Unions were never going to see much for them in this budget. Millionaire George Osborne’s claim that “we’re all in this together” never had much credibility with the workers. Even the promise he made in the June 2010 budget statement of a pay rise of £250 for the lowest paid public sector workers, he broke […]
Posts under ‘Public services’
The Cuts Game
Mar 23rd, 2011 by Jon Lansman.This is our favourite from the TUC’s 60-second ad contest, with a theme of public spending cuts. See other winning entries at False Economy, and on the big screen in Hyde Park at the March for the Alternative.
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Wanted: a political programme for the anti-cuts movement
Mar 17th, 2011 by Darrell Goodliffe.One of the things that the anti-cuts movement is conspicuous in lacking currently is a political programme. An economic programme it has some suggestions of, but a political one, it totally lacks. This may seem insignificant but it is actually far from it. For example, one of the reasons we have struggled to win any […]
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Share your private sector horror stories
Mar 16th, 2011 by Owen Jones.Bloated. Inefficient. Wasteful. Pampered. Manned by the lazy and incompetent; administered by shameless fat cats with salaries that make the Prime Minister look like a pauper. All-expenses paid trips to exotic locations. Non-jobs like ‘Executive Officer to Protect Endangered Snakes’. This is Britain’s public sector, if the relentless campaign of bile directed against it by the Conservative Party […]
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We need an ideological revival, but not what’s being offered
Mar 10th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Whilst Big Society may be a vacuous slogan, Cameron’s commitment to deconstruct the State, as he told us explicitly three weeks ago, is very real. Following hard on the dismantling of the NHS, he made clear that there would be no public service, with the sole exception of national security and the judiciary, which could […]
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Living in the shadow of the Bankers – and paying the price for their greed
Mar 8th, 2011 by Mark Seddon.When the Chief Executive of Barclays Bank, Bob Diamond, made his appearance in front of a House of Commons Select Committee recently, he said that “the time for remorse was over” for the bankers who had driven the Western economies to the edge of the precipice. Last month it emerged that Barclays Bank paid only […]
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“America is not broke” – Michael Moore speaks up for workers in Wisconsin
Mar 6th, 2011 by Jon Lansman.Michael Moore, maker of documentaries such as Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, yesterday went to Madison, Wisconsin, to back public sector workers in their battle to defend their union rights, and saluted the 14 state Democratic senators who left Wisconsin to block a vote on the Bill.
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Mehdi Hasan on Deficit Denial
Feb 22nd, 2011 by Jon Lansman.Mehdi Hasan, Senior Editor (politics) of the New Statesman, speaking at the Progressive London conference last Saturday.
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Moving beyond the budget question in defending council services
Feb 16th, 2011 by Darrell Goodliffe.I have often argued that I favour councils setting a social budget and, if necessary, setting an illegal budget rather than implementing cuts. I continue to favour this but I fear that, on the left, we are getting too caught up in this discussion and it is obscuring other demands we need to be making. […]
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Ed Miliband will protest on March 26 – and it matters
Feb 10th, 2011 by Owen Jones.So, it’s official. Ed Miliband will be speaking at the TUC’s ‘March For The Alternative‘ demonstration on 26th March. Well, that’s what Peter Hain told me on Twitter today, and I’m willing to take his word for it. Cue right-wing hysteria about ‘Red Ed’. In other countries, no-one would blink if the left-of-centre opposition leader joined […]
