The EU/US trade deal (TTIP) is a vast power grab on behalf of the world’s biggest corporations, and there’s still time to stop it. In this new international order – or disorder – the economic, military, political and even moral leadership of the West is increasingly challenged” Michel Barnier, EU Commissioner, 12 June, on the […]
Posts Tagged ‘Privatisation’
The political class won’t “reconnect” until markets are drastically reformed
Jun 19th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.‘Reconnecting’ is the buzz word for the political class. They all agree it’s necessary, but very few have any serious ideas about how it might be achieved, and through force of inertia they easily slip back into the old ways. What they don’t realise is that it’s more about their constituents feeling able to reconnect as […]
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Support the French rail strikers
Jun 17th, 2014 by Tom Gill.The French rail strike – now in its sixth day — is a pain. Nobody likes seeing their train cancelled. High school exams are being disrupted too. But why are the railway workers on strike? They are protesting against the railway reforms of the Government of President Francois Hollande and PM Manuel Valls. The Government claims […]
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How did the disgraced Atos get a £184m disability assessment contract?
Jun 13th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.It is bizarre that the hated Atos, whose reputation was destroyed by its punitive mishandling of work capability assessments of the disabled, should be awarded a multi-million contract for the new personal independence payments across London and the south of England. In one sense it is not surprising because the Tories, having privatised major public […]
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The sharks are circling Scottish Water
Jun 4th, 2014 by Dave Watson.Scottish Water is a public corporation that delivers a publicly owned water and sewerage service to the people of Scotland, unlike the privatised service in the rest of the UK. It’s a model that has served Scotland well, delivering clean fresh Scottish water to homes and businesses and removing sewage along some 60,000 miles of […]
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US capitalist medicine in the UK? No thanks
Jun 4th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.As the Tories race to finish the privatisation and outsourcing of the NHS before the election, one critical aspect of this precipitate rush to turn Britain over to a US-type healthcare system has not been understood. What has brought it to notice is the recent report by a former head of the US Centres for […]
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Austerity, enforced privatisation: what sort of “social Europe” is this?
May 6th, 2014 by Thomas Butler.We often talk about the EU fantasies peddled by UKIP and the right – and we are right to do so. But sadly, organisations on the left are prone to investing in European myths that are in fact very dangerous. Most often, we hear of prospects for a “social Europe”. We hear that the EU […]
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State ownership of rail is only the start
May 6th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.As the 31 Labour parliamentary candidates are demanding in their letter to Miliband, the case for returning rail to the public sector after the botched privatisation of 1996 is overwhelming. Private ownership has produced for the UK the highest fares in Europe, extensive overcrowding on commuter lines because of giving priority to dividends for shareholders over […]
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What lies behind Blairite calls for “an avowedly pro-business agenda”?
Apr 15th, 2014 by Jon Lansman.Alan Milburn was once a Trotskyist, who co-ran a small left-wing bookshop in Newcastle, Days of Hope (aka Haze of Dope). Now he is better known as the New Labour politician and former Secretary of State for Health whom David Cameron appointed as his “social mobility Tsar”. He is also one of those Blairite heavyweights […]
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Royal Mail fire sale costs taxpayer £1.4 billion
Apr 15th, 2014 by Grahame Morris.The Royal Mail served the nation for over 500 years; however a Government fire sale not only privatised this prize asset but also short changed the public. Last week, the National Audit Office (NAO) delivered a damning report showing that the Government’s rush to privatise the Royal Mail cost the taxpayer £1.4 billion.
