Osborne cutting to the point of no return

‘Post 2015 we face either cutting spending on public services to the level of six and half decades ago, rolling back huge segments of the social security system or substantial tax rises’ writes Duncan Weldon of the TUC in a brilliant analysis if the implications of yesterday’s speech by George Osborne MP. The Chancellor reiterated that cuts would continue after the next election in an move calculated to lock down economic policy options into a paradigm of permanent austerity. ‘Politically this is exactly the debate the Chancellor wants’ says Weldon. The big question is whether or not Labour will continue to allow the Tories to set the terms of the debate on public finances or challenge the endless and counter productive spiral of austerity and cuts?
http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2014/01/financial-repression-deficit-reduction

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

A life in dreams by Jacob Sam-La Rose

There have been teeth
falling loose from their sockets
like a shower of petals or bones.

There has been treacle;
attempts to run against a gravity wound so tight
tight single steps were futile—
a travelling nowhere,
a running on the spot,
a fanged leer and a gnarled hand
inching ever closer.

Where do they make up the news?

It’s that time of year when you don’t quite know what day it is. Is today Thursday or Friday? But it is time to catch up with the press and find out if anything has been happening in the real world. Sometimes reading the “quality Sundays” there is a curious feeling akin to cognitive dissonance, where readers experience a lack of consistency from tale to tale, between their expectations and their reality. These newspapers expect us to contribute to their favourite charity at this time of year, usually on international development or animals and will complain about women being on page 3 or not being on bank notes, and support gay marriage and “alternative lifestyles”. But let’s forget the comment pages. What do they report ?

Why Unions Need to Join the Climate Fight

‘My argument is that the climate threat makes the need to fight austerity all the more pressing, since we need public services and public infrastructure to both bring down our emissions and prepare for the coming storms. Far from trumping other issues, climate change vindicates much of what the left has been demanding for decades’ said the campaigning writer Naomi Klein in a seminal speech to the founding conference of Canada’s largest trade union Unifor last September: http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2013/09/why-unions-need-join-climate-fight

Pashugayatri by Banira Giri

Like myriad streams and rivulets flowing into a nameless sea,
like masses of clouds sailing here and there in an infinite sky,
contained within each other animate/inanimate
like KrishnaLila in Brindaban, but, in this holy land of Pashupati,
there lies completely helpless, bereft and naked,
pitiful Bagmati. Our elders would say—sometimes at night,
she, for a wink of an eye, would stand still!

Time for HE employers to end double standards & pay up

UNISON members employed in the UK’s universities are continuing with an industrial action campaign to improve a lousy 1% pay offer in the 2013/14 pay round. Alongside UCU and Unite members, two days of strike action were staged late last year with further action planned for February. A key argument put forward by the HE unions is the affordability of the joint union claim for a pay rise which at least matches the rate of inflation. The hypocrisy of the HE employers is revealed in stark relief by an Independent report of a survey showing that the ‘Russell Group universities - which represents 24 of the most selective higher education institutions in the country - awarded pay rises of 8.1 per cent on average to their Vice-Chancellors while overall benefits packages also soared by 5.2 per cent’
http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/university-chiefs-under-fire-for-huge-pay-rises-after-tuition-fee-hikes-9034893.html

2014 is UN Year of Solidarity With the Palestinian People - Make It Count

Many days or years are marked out for international commemorations but none is more important than the United Nations General Assembly decision to proclaim 2014 as the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. In the UK the Palestine Solidarity Campaign works tirelessly in support of justice for the Palestinian people and deserves the support of all UNISON activists and branches in the year ahead. Make it one of your New Year's resolutions to back the campaign!
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp/www.iaea.org/story.asp?NewsID=46578&Cr=Palestin&Cr1=
http://www.palestinecampaign.org/

Get involved in the actions and passions of our time

A New Year Message from Denis Goldberg.
I hope 2014 will be a better year in the advance to a world that is fit for human beings. But it can only be better if we, all of us, make the effort to find ways to deal with the economic, social and political crises that the super rich countries of the world create as they continue to skew the benefits of our human capacity to invent, to find creative solutions that start to reverse the structured inequality of our society. It does need restructuring and we must do it.

A Happy and Peaceful New Year - and organise!

"Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom." Nelson Mandela.

After a year that saw the ConDems institutionalise poverty with the bedroom tax, child poverty rising, most of those in poverty being in work, and food banks becoming one of the few growth industries, let's organise for change in 2014.

Have a Happy and peaceful New Year and organise!