Low Pay endemic in Britain

45% of the workforce in Britain takes home two-thirds or less of the national median hourly wage and are therefore officially classed as low-earners according to a European Commission report published last week. Low pay in Britain is 27% above the EU average:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/127487

Everything Changes by Bertolt Brecht

Everything changes. You can make
A fresh start with your final breath.
But what has happened has happened. And the water
You once poured into the wine cannot be
Drained off again.

Roadmap to Apartheid

Last week the African National Congress voted to support the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, declaring it was "unapologetic in its view that the Palestinians are the victims and the oppressed in the conflict with Israel." Democracy Now previews a new documentary film "Roadmap to Apartheid" - about the apartheid analogy commonly used to describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/12/21/as_the_anc_votes_to_support

2012 - beginning of the end for the NHS?

In 2010, when the then, Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley published his cynical government White Paper, titled ‘Liberating the NHS’, he set out the coalition government’s plans to systematically destroy the NHS in England. Initially it was the trade unions who recognised the reality behind Lansley’s sophistry. Meetings and rallies were organised to explain the government’s real agenda for health. This was a blueprint for privatisation, and the removal of health provision from the responsibility of government. The unions were castigated by the coalition as doom-mongers and dinosaurs who opposed change. Now that Lansley’s vision has been enacted through the Health and Social Care Act, it is little consolation to say “we told you so”:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/alex-nunns/year-of-cataclysm-for-nhs

Must we destroy or create? You, what do you think? by Andrea Raos

Must we destroy or create? You, what do you think?
this very monticule of sand, the accumulation of a few days
and a little wind, our eyes have seen it, is it now
a human creature, does it come from the chance play of my intention
or from some more vast
play of chance? You only have to look at a leaf for it to be transformed
into a leaf: you press your face against the moss
nothing happens. This sand once fixed
we call sand while without mentioning its name the ant-lion
did what it had to do, what it does constantly and what it will cease doing
one day. Thus, as I see
debris of ineternity this ancient rock
swallows me up and hates me. Destroy, create . . . hatred
was not made for man, it is I.
http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/3540/24/Andrea-Raos

Another Country by Sean O'Brien

Get there if you can
– W H Auden

Scattered comrades, now remember: someone stole the staffroom tin
Where we collected for the miners, for the strike they couldn't win,

The Hillsborough Archive - UNISON NEC calls for a public enquiry in 1996

The Independent Panel on the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy has published all disclosed material on-line and it includes correspondence from UNISON's National Executive Council - sent in 1996 by former General Secretary Rodney Bickerstaffe to the then Conservative Prime Minister John Major in support of a public enquiry:
http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/repository/docs/HOM000037060001.pdf

Disabled People facing an Austerity Double Whammy

Across Europe austerity driven attacks on the welfare state are hitting disabled people particularly hard and 'reversing any gains made by disabled people in rights, access to employment and accessibility' writes Steve McGiffen:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/127454

The undeniable case for Council Tax increases

Even the Tory led LGA accepts that local government has taken the brunt of funding cuts. The slash and burn approach to revenue support grants mean the cuts are now exceeding a third of all council spending by a further 5%, taking the cuts from 28% to 33%. The council tax freeze is only exacerbating the problem.

There must be 50 ways to save your council...

Well it’s not quite as tuneful as Paul Simon's ‘50 ways to leave your lover’ but bless his rather large cotton socks Eric is trying so hard to be popular he has delved deep down to the lowest common denominator amongst the blue rinse brigade – and yes you have guessed it – he has once again attacked the trade unions under the guise of 50 ways to save your council.