Solidarity 262, 26 October 2012

Don't buy into Police and Crime Commissioners!

On 15 November people in England and Wales will vote to elect a Police and Crime Commissioner for each of 41 police forces. The PCCs replace the existing Police Authorities and will therefore be in charge of police funding and producing a "Police and Crime Plan" - which includes policing priorities and objectives, and a set of policing targets - which will be used to hold the chief constable to "account". The Conservative Party - who proposed creating the role - have argued that Police Commissioners are "the most significant democratic reform" to policing in England and Wales "in our lifetime"...

Pay-outs to wealthy rise 16% from 2011 to 2012

Dividends are the portion of profits which companies pay out to shareholders instead of investing in expansion, holding the money in reserve, or handing it over in the guise of top bosses' pay and bonuses. Dividends paid out in 2012 will total around £78.6 billion (Financial Times, 22 October). This is a 16% increase on 2011, and to a level way above the pre-crisis in 2007. Some dividends go to pension funds, which in held 5.1 per cent by value of UK shares, and some pension funds pay out to working-class people, But even in pension funds the big pay-outs go to the well-off; and it is only 5.1...

Hundreds of thousands of workers on the streets – but what next?

Over 150,000 people demonstrated in London on 20 October and tens of thousands more in Glasgow and Belfast. There were many flashes and flurries of militancy on the London demo – from direct action against companies involved in ‘Workfare’ to disability activists blocking Park Lane and stopping traffic at the end of the demo. Hundreds of marchers carried home-made signs identifying themselves as “Plebs”. Demonstrators heckled Ed Miliband for saying there would have to be some cuts. Despite discouragement from the TUC, there were a number of lively feeder marches. These included several thousand...

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