Editorial: A conspiracy of the rich
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What is government? Download PDF
According to a report by the an independent government advisory committee, non-British born migrants face a high level of exploitation while policies designed to offer workers some minimal protection are only weakly enforced. The Migration Advisory Committee report The growth of EU and non-EU labour in low-skilled jobs and its impact on the UK published last week looks at the 13 million jobs in the UK that are classified as low skilled (requiring little or no training) which comprise about 45% of UK jobs. 2 million are held by immigrants, half of these are recent migrants mainly from Eastern...
The public sector strike on 10 July will be the biggest strike in Britain since the November 2011 strike over attacks to public sector pensions. Well over one million workers could take part. At the heart of the dispute is the low pay epidemic which afflicts millions of workers in Britain. According to research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the cost of maintaining a decent standard of living in the UK has increased by 46% since 2008, while wages have only increased by 9%. A couple with children now need to earn £40,574 to maintain a minimum standard of living, compared to less than £28...
When I was growing up, I remember being really confused about why some people had loads and other people didn’t. It seemed really unfair that I was well fed, clothed and schooled while other children didn’t go to school, or had to work, or went to bed hungry. I grew up in a really middle-class environment, and a lot of what some people said made me angry. When I was about eight, I said that people should be made to give up their wealth. Some adults would just scoff, or laugh at me, or say I would change my mind as I got older. I may only be twenty-five — but I haven’t yet changed my mind about...
Members of the public sector union Unison have voted by a 59% majority to strike on 10 July against a 1% pay offer and for a rise of at least £1 an hour. In the week preceding the announcement of Unison’s ballot result, the National Union of Teachers confirmed it would join a 10 July strike. Strike ballot results from Unite, GMB, and the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) (all over public sector pay) are yet to be announced, and the Fire Brigades Union has a live ballot that will allow it to participate in a 10 July strike. Transport for London staff (employed in central TfL...
In ancient Rome, so I read somewhere, a senator, surrounded by his henchmen and servitors, would walk with a strutting, rolling gait akin to that of a present-day sumo wrestler. It was a mark of status. To reproduce that literally in a dramatic modern portrayal of a Roman Senator - imagine a performance of Julius Caesar in which Mark Anthony, Brutus, Cassius, Caesar and the others all walk like that - could produce only hilarity. Reality has to be translated into terms intelligible to the audience. So too with the film Angela's Ashes, set in the slums of Limerick. As everyone who encounters...
Labour's Shadow Home Secretary, Jack Straw, recently proposed a curfew on children. He opened his heart and mind to Workers Liberty reporter Patrick Avakuum. --- AS Tony Blair's team waits impatiently to cross the floor of the House of Commons and show that they can outdo the Tories, Jack Straw, Labour's Shadow Home Secretary has emerged as an unexpected Front Bench star in this brilliant company. For a long time Straw — "straw in his name, straw in his mouth, straw between his ears" as someone once unkindly said —was regarded as the village idiot of the Front Bench. Not any more. Straw has...
For once the Guardian (on 7 June) contained a useful article which asked: what can a week sat in an inner London courtroom tell us about the condition of British society? A parade of poor people, many accused of micro-scale shoplifting or petty theft, passed through the court. Mamadu earns £200 a month as a cleaner. He was caught on camera taking a small amount of money from his employer’s office because he did not have the fare home. He is embarrassed and humiliated. Bshart admits stealing £6 worth of condoms. He is addicted to alcohol and heroin. Now he will have £5 a week deducted from his...
Since 23 May, debate has raged among economists about an attempt by journalists on the Financial Times to refute the claim by Thomas Piketty, in his best-seller Capital in the 21st Century, that wealth inequality is rising and likely to continue to rise in the USA and Europe. Most economists, even quite conservative ones, reckon that Piketty has come best out of the row. There are other elements to the dispute, but the core argument is about wealth distribution in Britain, specifically, in recent decades. The background is that official figures for wealth are patchy and inconsistent. Piketty...
Economic inequality has increased. It is on a solid trend to continue increasing. The USA, the most unequal of the richer countries, may set a new historical record for income inequality by 2030, and other countries are following similar though not identical trajectories. So says Thomas Piketty in his book Capital in the 21st Century. It is a best-seller in France, where it was originally published, and now also in Britain and the USA, despite costing £30 and stretching to 640 pages. His other message, less expanded on by reviewers or even by Piketty himself, is that “the history of inequality...
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