Tagged with London

Boris Johnson’s decision to buy water cannons is misguided and bizarre

o-TURKEY-WATER-CANNON-facebookWhat is Boris Johnson frightened of – apart from losing the Tory party leadership (for which he is a racing certainty loser already)? He says he needs to be ready for trouble on the streets in the summer. But there’s not the slightest evidence for this – more’s the pity considering what Tory austerity has viciously (and unnecessarily) imposed on ordinary people and particularly the poorest.

Is this the normal Tory hankering after suppressing protest in all its forms? He says he can get them on the cheap by buying 3 German secondhand water cannons. But that doesn’t justify the principle of this development which has national implications. Furthermore every other argument tells against the rashness and folly of this decision. Continue reading →

London’s NHS at the crossroads

Peoples Inquiry into Londons NHSCash-driven hospital ‘reconfigurations’ – so hotly contested across the capital – must stop, say a panel of experts conducting a ‘health check’ into London’s NHS. Instead they call for a London-wide needs assessment to match services to patterns of need across the capital.

The panel also calls for NHS managers to be placed under a duty of candour to stop them covering up for financial pressures and dishonestly claiming that changes are “clinically led”. If the money is not there to run a full range of appropriate services, NHS managers should say so openly, and put the focus back onto the politicians whose decisions on funding are to blame. Continue reading →

Strike ballots and unintended consequencies

BorisJohnson’s at it again. Rather than sit down and have meaningful dialogue with workers’ representatives on the London Underground, he’s been carping about a “lack of mandate” because the RMT’s successful strike ballot came off the back of a 40% turnout. Instead, Johnson believes every ballot for industrial action should meet a 50% threshold to qualify as lawful. Ever keen to mimic the buffoon and curry favour with the wilting Tory grassroots, Dave has intimated that he’d like to see the Underground classed as an essential service, an imposition of a minimum service agreement during stoppages and, of course, a turnout threshold. For both men, it’s about an instinctive hatred of a group of working people who have a record of winning disputes.  Continue reading →

London Labour: in need of some refounding

In a packed hall a mile from London’s Olympic park, the London Labour Party’s biennial conference was in bullish mood this last weekend. In spite of the loss of last year’s mayoral election, delegates and platform alike sounded confident that London Labour is in good shape electorally, as well as determined and radical in its wide ranging policy discussions. Unfortunately the reality is that Refounding Labour passed by the London Labour Party. It’s run from HQ, and the only devolution that’s going is to town hall bosses. Continue reading →

Call for “direct action” to save Whittington Hospital, after huge public meeting

Islington local residents have been urged to launch a campaign of direct action including occupations to save Whittington hospital. Unite South Eastern Regional secretary, Peter Kavanagh, made the call following a packed Save Whittington Hospital public meeting in Islington last night. The Board of the Whittington NHS Trust took the decision to sell off £17 million of hospital buildings, including the closure of three wards, halving patient beds to 177 and axing 570 jobs, up to 200 of them nurses. Continue reading →