On 25 February, the government website proclaimed ‘Prime Minister sets out biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War.’

By Jeremy Dewar Austerity returned to Lambeth, South London in a big way last month. The right wing clique that has dominated the local Labour Party for decades passed a budget threatening £99 million of cuts by 2029, frontloaded with £50 million coming in the first year. Details have not been fully revealed, but we […]

A PCS member In a move reminiscent of the coalition government of the 2010s, Rachel Reeves has announced a sweeping 15% cut to the civil service administration budget. Reeves’ spring statement was a clear signal to the markets that Labour will hold to their self-imposed fiscal rules by slashing the public sector and making the […]

By KD Tait As the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, unveiled her spring statement, the echoes of austerity reverberated across the nation. Although wrapped in rhetoric about investment and growth, the proposals unveiled are far from the transformative change this country desperately needs. Instead, they are a continuation of policies that prioritise the wealthiest […]

By Rose Tedeschi Liz Kendall says that young Universal Credit claimants are ‘taking the mickey’ by choosing not to work. Never mind that Universal Credit pays a standard rate of only £393.45 a month, less than a person could make in a week on a full-time minimum wage job. Never mind that millions of jobs […]

The markets demand public spending cuts, and Rachel Reeves is happy to oblige.

7.2 million people are on waiting lists for NHS treatment in England.

Living standards will fall by 7% in the next two years.

The Spring Statement signalled the return of austerity and the steepest slide in living standards since records began in the 1950s.

By Reginald Banks The Tories have fired an initial salvo at the working class in the battle over who is to pay for the pandemic. The new ‘health and social care levy’, which cleared all of its Commons stages in a single day, will raise national insurance rates by 1.25% to their highest level ever […]

Class, oppression and mental health under lockdown.

Lebanon, like Iraq, Sudan, and Algeria, is experiencing its own version of the Arab Spring with mass demonstrations, occupations and street blockades

Chile joins a growing list of countries currently experiencing a mass revolt for a better world, free of corruption, poverty and austerity. These presently include Ecuador, Lebanon, Hong Kong, Sudan, Iraq, and Chile

  TORY plans to reduce tax credits have been defeated in the House of Lords. This is a welcome setback for Osborne, but he is still determined to grab £4.4 billion from low paid workers and the self-employed. The Lords’ vote will delay Osborne’s plans by three years, but his Autumn Statement will reveal fresh […]

By Rebecca Anderson 2 May 2015 Chancellor George Osborne crowed in his 2015 budget speech that the employment rate was at 73 per cent, an all-time high. Those with friends and family struggling to find work will be surprised by this statistic, but the Tories have been very effective at kicking people off benefits. Job […]

By Bernie McAdam 16 March 2015 A mass strike involving up to 50,000 public sector workers was held across the north of Ireland on Friday 13 March. NIPSA, UNITE, INTO, GMB and UNISON called out members in transport, health, social services, education and the civil service against the Stormont Executive’s plans to cut the Budget […]

Chancellor George Osborne’s early Christmas present came in the form of the Autumn Statement, which threatened to cut public spending to levels not seen since the 1930s, writes Jeremy Dewar Despite early attempts by the Tories to spin the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement as a tweaking of their austerity programme, with Prime Minister David Cameron even […]

By Rebecca Anderson This year’s Tory party conference saw a bonfire of human rights, welfare and hope for an end to austerity. Chancellor George Osborne revised his deficit reduction estimate and announced a further seven years of cuts; Home Secretary Theresa May announced plans to scrap the Human Rights Act; and Prime Minister David Cameron […]

The Tory government’s new Budget, due on 20 March, will be the focus of a TUC evening rally against austerity, supported by Shelter and the Child Poverty Action Group. Called A Future for Families it will be addressed by TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady and Labour Party deputy leader Harriet Harman.   It will highlight […]

By Joy Macready “Can’t move, won’t move!” Drawing on the historic chant against the Poll Tax, this is the rallying call for a new movement against the latest vicious attack by the Coalition against the poorest and most vulnerable. The bedroom tax, which comes into effect in April, will see families, single mothers and disabled […]

Joy Macready reports on the growing backlash against a women’s right to choose In September, a woman was jailed for terminating her pregnancy in its final stage. Sarah Catt took a drug that she purchased on the Internet to cause an abortion in 2009, and now faces eight years in prison for it. To give […]

Nassos Theodoridis, a member of Syriza’s Human Rights Commission, spoke by live-link to a meeting organised by the Labour Representation Committee, Leeds Against the Cuts and Leeds Anticapitalist Alternative. The meeting was introduced by Andy Young of Workers Power who gave a brief outline of the situation in Greece and then Nassos spoke about the […]

AT THE moment, it is vitally necessary for revolutionaries to pursue such a tactic within Syriza and to campaign for maximum electoral support while criticising every limitation of its programme and leadership. Any sectarian abstention would be suicidal for the left because it would pass the initiative to the fascists, who could grow like wildfire amongst the […]

THE COALITION took a drubbing in the local elections. The Tories and Lib Dems lost 741 seats and 13 councils, including major cities like Southampton, where a year long strike campaign by local authority workers has finally seen their wage-cutting Tory bosses defeated at the polls.

Joy Macready takes stock of the results ot the local council elections and asks where now for Labour?   Thursday 3 May proved to be a red-letter day for Labour. The local elections saw a mass turn to Labour, despite its lack of strategy to oppose austerity. This was clearly a protest vote against the […]

Britain is experiencing “the deepest recession and weakest recovery for 100 years,” according to Michael Saunders, an economist at Citigroup. Output has not recovered even half of what it lost in the great crash of 2008-09 and the economy has flatlined over the past year, and has started to contract again with a 0.2 per […]

By Sally Turner   REMPLOY, a government-owned company that provides disabled people with employment, is closing 36 of its 54 factories and sacking at least 1,700 workers. Everyone should oppose this act, which will destroy workers’ dignity and independence, as well as halting socially useful production. Workers Power and Revolution members went to meet the […]

The Greek elections have demonstrated a massive popular rejection of the governing parties who support the EU-IMF austerity memorandum that has caused so much suffering to ordinary Greek people over the last two years. New Democracy (ND), which won 33.5 per cent in 2009, is in first place with 18.9 per cent, a loss of […]

Staff and parents at Downhills Primary School have launched an impressive campaign to fight the Department of Educations attempt to force the community school into becoming an academy, writes Rachel Brooks

Have you noticed that the Con-Dems’ have stopped insisting ‘we’re all this together’? A new report showing child poverty rates spiralling as cuts hit the poorest families hardest might help explain why. The report, published by the Campaign to End Child Poverty tells a tale of two cities in Leeds. Child poverty rates in the […]