TUC cuts through Con Dem 100 days media hype‏

Great work by the TUC - cutting through the media hype about the Con Dem government hitting the 100 day mark tomorrow - and setting out 100 cuts which impact more on the poorest families in the UK.
http://www.tuc.org.uk/newsroom/tuc-18360-f0.cfm

ConDems dividing & destroying the NHS‏

‘The privatisation of the National Health Service has moved from the back door to the front door. Profits before patients is the agenda for hospitals, now that the coalition Government is in control’ writes Jill Palmer in Tribune: http:/www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2010/08/17/divide-and-destroy-the-nhs-%e2%80%93-how-deeply-despicable/  ‘Abolishing the private income rules pushes foundation trusts further away from the public sector and into the private market. It is a fundamentally flawed policy that will replace co-operation with competition as hospitals fight for lucrative private contracts. It will divide and destroy the NHS as we know and love it.

Audit Commission abolition - more rich pickings for Big 4 consultancy firms?‏

The Tax Research UK blog notes that “the audit functions of the Commission will be moved to the private sector. Its research activities will simply cease. So, rich pickings for the Big 4 firms who spent so much supporting the Tory because before the general election there then..”
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2010/08/14/farewell-to-the-audit-commission/

Pensions are less than half the minimum standard of living‏

Here is all the evidence we need to start to fightback over pensions and make sure we keep the benefits paid out by the NHS and Local Government pension schemes. Pension pots of workers have continued to shrink alarmingly in the past month, leaving 65-year-olds with half the amount they need for an adequate standard of living in retirement, analysts said yesterday.

Organising lessons from 40 years ago?

Following the death of Jimmy Reid BBC Radio Scotland repeated a programme about the work-in from 2002 - "Fighting and Winning: The Work-in At UCS". It is a blend of interviews with the leading figures from the work-in, as well arhive from the time and details from recently released cabinet papers.

Right wing critics wrong on economic inequality‏

The National Equality Panel’s Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK, chaired by Professor John Hills reported in January 2010 that there has been a massive increase in income in the top tier of society since the 1980’s and quite staggering increases for a small (but still numerous) elite since the 1990’s. http://www.equalities.gov.uk/pdf/NEP%20Summary.pdf

FW: The case for a one-off tax of the rich‏

Greg Philo, research director of Glasgow University Media Unit has an interesting article on the Guardian website in which he makes a simple but profound point on the supposed financial crisis: “a one-off tax of just 20% on the wealth of this group (richest 10%) would pay the national debt and dramatically reduce the deficit”. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/15/deficit-crisis-tax-the-rich

Death by a thousand cuts‏

George Galloway, writing in yesterday’s Morning Star, warns that the Con Dem Government is attempting an ‘epochal shift in the way our society is organised’. http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/94033

The truth about the June 2010 Budget - there is an alternative!‏

“There has been so much spin and distortion about the UK deficit that most people would be forgiven for thinking there is no alternative to public spending cuts” says the East Midlands region of UNISON, introducing an excellent on-line presentation showing that there is an alternative to public spending cuts:
http://unisoneastmids.blogspot.com/2010/08/truth-about-budget-2010-see-more.html

Change by Yannis Ritsos‏

Over here we have to imagine many things—
for instance, a window to look through onto the sea.
We look at the sea differently through a window,
differently than from behind barbed wire.