In Con Dem Britain the serial privatisers march on

Neil Clark, of the Campaign for Public Ownership writes in the Morning Star about the Con Dem's relentless drive to hive off public services in the face of both public opposition and mounting evidence of the failures of privatisation: "Thatcher may be dead, but in 2014 Thatcherism continues, in a new and even more extreme form. Despite public opinion being against them and the arguments for privatisation being more discredited than ever, the serial privatisers march on. But we should not allow ourselves to become demoralised. We have all the arguments on our side as well as the support of the vast majority of the public. It's true that 2013 was a year of disappointments, but that should only make us redouble our efforts in 2014 to bring the privatisation era to an end"
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-6452-selling-off-britain

Public finances a one-way street for cuts crazed Con Dems

George Osborne MP, the government’s leading prophet of austerity, will today announce that ‘more painful cuts’ are needed in the year ahead, pointing out that public borrowing continues at £100bn a year. This is the same government that has depleted public finances by cutting the top rate of tax for those earning more than £150,000 from 50% to 45% and which by 2015 will have brought down Corporation Tax on company profits from 28% to 20%. Whilst, it is to be expected that a government of and for the rich will favour permanent cuts in public services over progressive taxation on the wealthy and increased taxes for corporations, it would be a fatal mistake for an incoming Labour government to adopt the same approach:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25617844

New ways of doing politics - Spot the difference

Coalition Agreement 12 May 2010 ‘We will regulate lobbying through introducing a statutory register of lobbyists and ensuring greater transparency. We will also pursue a detailed agreement on limiting donations and reforming party funding in order to remove big money from politics’

Ed Miliband 22 July 2013
‘We want to open up our policy-making, clean up the lobbying industry and take the big money out of politics’.

Cleggzilla strikes back by gagging unions

An interesting revelation on the Spectator blog today. Apparently Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is a zipped up supporter of the proposed regulations to stifle the collective political voice of trade unions because he is on the receiving end of UNISON campaigning in his Sheffield constituency. Not unreasonable criticism given that Sheffield has lost £190 million from Con Dem spending cuts in the past three years, don't you think? So much for free speech:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2013/jan/15/public-spending-cuts-sheffield-jessica-ennis-don-valley-stadium

LGA to Con Dems – stop killing local government

The Local Government Association (LGA) has responded to Chancellor Osborne's 2015/16 budget announcement yesterday, in which he claimed that local government was one of “seven Government departments have agreed provisionally to cuts of up to 10 per cent,” Sir Merrick Cockell, LGA Chairman, said that "local government bore the brunt of cuts in the last Spending Review. For the sake of the public it cannot afford to do so again."

The Coalition Mid Term Review - Bad, Mad And Dangerous

Be warned that reading the fifty two page Coalition mid-term review is bad for the health, leaving a nasty taste in the mouth as well as the feeling of bile rising in the gullet. Smug, complacent and self congratulatory, it reeks of the politics of a blinkered ruling class, whose idea of how the majority of people live is created exclusively from repeated showings of Jeremy Kyle and exposure to Daily Mail headlines. Jokes about Ronseal aside, the performance on view was usual over-confident public school boy banter.
  Fundamentally the script has not changed.The emphasis remains the deficit, dear boy, the deficit. Long term unemployment, failing construction, manufacturing and services sectors matter not.

Paranoia of the Tory Class Warriors

At the 2012 Tory Party Conference Local Government Minister Eric Pickles made a speech which verged on self-parody in its Cold War zeal: ‘...without constant vigilance - the cigar-chomping Commies will take over. Well, that isn't going to happen on my watch. After more than two years in government, I've learnt that cigar-chomping Commies come in many guises.’ It would be a mistake to consider Pickles as an isolated crank. Look no further than a Telegraph article yesterday titled ‘Fighting back against the Left-wing guerrillas’ by Sean Worth who until June was David Cameron’s special adviser, based in 10 Downing Street:
http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2012/10/Eric_Pickles_Conference_2012.aspx

Debt, Deficit and Public Opinion

At UNISON North West Regional Council last Tuesday, Paul Nowak of the TUC gave a well received presentation on the challenges facing the labour movement. Paul highlighted a key contradiction in recent opinion survey in that most people thought austerity cuts were damaging the economy but at the same time most thought the cuts were required. This presents an interesting (and concerning) problem.

More strike action in Cheshire West & Chester Library Service

Yesterday, for the second Saturday in succession, UNISON's library members took strike action across West Cheshire in support of the union's industrial campaign against pay cuts imposed by a Tory led Council which is sitting on over £20m reserves.

The road to oblivion - Labour's embrace of Con Dem cuts

At a time when communities and trade unions across Britain are campaigning to defend public services and save jobs in the face of economic austerity, it beggars belief why Labour is ceasing to be an opposition and making a virtue of supporting Con Dem cuts?

94% of Con Dem Cuts yet to take place

Tribune reports on ominous findings by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) that only six per cent of cuts planned during the current Parliament have been implemented. The IFS says Chancellor Osborne’s autumn statement confirms that two more years of austerity than originally intended will be needed, so its own projections should not be seen as controversial. “Since the financial crisis and recession began, a £114 billion hole has become apparent”: http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2012/02/they%e2%80%99ve-only-just-begun-millions-are-feeling-the-pinch-but-94-per-cent-of-the-coalition%e2%80%99s-cuts-have-yet-to-take-place/

NHS Atlas of Variation confirms postcode lottery

Con Dem plans to break up the NHS in the name of "localism" will exacerbate existing regional disparities in patient care in England. The Guardian highlights tension between the Government's proposals for a "localised" health service and the need to impose basic minimum care standards: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/dec/09/nhs-lottery-survey-uk-disparities

Con Dem's signpost permanent austerity

The Chancellor’s stubborn determination to stick to his plan despite the evidence that it is not working and won’t work in the future means that we are locked into permanent austerity’ commented TUC General Secretary on the Autumn Statement by George Osborne MP in which he confirmed further cuts in services, two more years of 1% pay restraint and signalled an introduction of local bargaining:
http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2011/11/this-is-permanent-austerity/

Con Dem NHS privatisation plans exposed

Last night Channel 4 News reported on Department of Health plans which show for the first time the scale of the involvement of private companies. The proposals are set out in a document called Developing Commissioning Support: Towards Services Excellence, which has been circulated to various health organisations. http://www.channel4.com/news/proof-government-plans-to-privatise-nhs

More Anti-Union laws in the pipeline?

Tribune reports on growing indications that the Con Dem government may be hatching a new anti-union Bill - with coalition propagandists targeting for starters; industrial action ballot turnouts/strike mandates, DOCAS periodic re-authorisations, paid time off for union duties and union political fund contributions:
http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2011/11/fears-grow-the-government-is-ready-to-%E2%80%98do-a-thatcher%E2%80%99-on-trade-union-rights/

Neanderthal Con Dems take axe to public education

Cuts planned to public education spending by 2014/15 are to be the largest in a four-year period since the 1950s, according to research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies. State spending will be reduced by more than 13% with under-fives, 16 to 19-year-olds and building programmes being the hardest hit:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/oct/24/education-cut-deepest-since-1950s 

The government is burning the money that could save public services

George Monbiot exposes the profligate spending, waste and hand outs to the rich by the Con Dem Government which confirm the ideological nature of the relentless attacks on public services and the welfare state - all done in the cause of 'reducing the public sector deficit'... http://www.monbiot.com/2011/10/03/more-cuts-please/

The UK's neo-liberal revolution

Professor Stuart Hall analyses the agenda of the Con Dem Government which he sees as 'the most radical, far-reaching and irreversible social revolution since the war': http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/12/march-of-the-neoliberals?cat=politics&type=article

Con Dem economic policy is clueless - TUC

#TUC11 ‘The problem is that the government has not just produced the wrong answer, they don’t even understand the question. Our economic problems lie in the collapse of an economic model that started in the 1980s and ended with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

Tory Councils’ attack on time off is one front in their war against Unions

NUJ activist Peter Lazenby, writing on the Guardian’s blog, notes that his local experience in Leeds – where the Con Dem Council is attacking union paid release from work – is far from an isolated example: ‘It's happening across the country, with other Tory councillors making similar proposals or preparing the ground for them. The Tories are even targeting union organisation in police authorities. If successful, it would financially cripple public sector unions’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/31/tory-council-assault-on-unions