Yesterday marked the continuation and escalation of a campaign led by the decentralised activist network UKUncut against major UK businesses who fail to meet their full tax obligations. The first target, Vodafone, was actioned at numerous sites across the country and done with a level of organisation and effectiveness that came to many as a surprise while also eliciting genuine support.
The GMB has uncovered shocking evidence of the damage caused by the coalition’s cuts, with a national average of 2.6 claimants for every job vacancy. This is a situation that is likely to get worse as the sacking of 500,000 public sector workers begins to bite harder in 2011.
This morning, Mark Wallace of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, writing on the ConservativeHome website, accused the Labour leader of Lambeth council of “frightening people” about cuts to essential services; here, Steve Reed responds to these criticisms, and explains just who is to blame for the cuts.
Wagner’s dreams of snow-capped glory may have gone up in smoke yesterday, but there’s still hope for those hoping to stick it to Simon Cowell – and do the same to the Clegg-eron coalition over their savage cuts agenda. Captain SKA’s hit video “Liar Liar” – featured on Left Foot Forward ten days ago – will go for Christmas gold against whoever wins the X Factor, going on sale from December 12th.
Fully one month after the scale of the government’s cuts to school sport were unveiled, politicians, journalists and sports stars have at long last been stirred into fighting back, the realisation of the horror about to be unleashed finally dawning. As Left Foot Forward reported in October, the Department for Education is scrapping the £162 million PE and Sports Strategy – a strategy which has been proven to work, significantly raising participation in competitive sport.
Nearly 50,000 people have viewed a music video against the coalition’s cuts, which features a montage of Nick Clegg, George Osborne and David Cameron droning on about us “all being in this together”, and even a star-turn from Mr Clegg’s (alleged) political inspiration – Mrs Thatcher.
Social care is currently in crisis due to lack of funding. The number of older people needing care is growing but rationing through eligibility criteria means fewer and fewer are qualifying for local authority support. There are few services aimed at preventing those with low-level care needs from reaching a crisis situation.
Shadow home secretary Ed Balls today attacked the David Cameron’s “Big Society” policy agenda, labelling it a “big con” leading to public services being run by volunteers on the cheap and a significant deterioration in crime prevention.
In further evidence that the coalition’s claims the NHS budget is ring fenced are questionable at best, Northern Ireland health minister, Michael McGimpsey, has warned that without protection for his department’s budget, the NHS across Northern Ireland faces the prospects of significant job losses.
Government projections show there will be more than 250,000 new households every year over the decade to 2020, the result of growth in the number of single person households, increasing life expectancy and net migration. Building 110,000 new homes in 2009 clearly falls far short of this.
