Britain

While hundreds of thousands of civil servants,
teachers and health workers are fighting to defend their pensions, the Tory Lib
Dem Coalition are preparing further attacks on all sections of the working
class people. The March 21st budget was a budget by the rich, for the rich.  Pensioners, those on benefits, the
unemployed – all will be hit hard, yet the rich are rewarded with tax handouts.

It is the scandal that must not be ignored. For yet another month, UK
unemployement has risen again as we pay for the bosses’ crisis. Another
28,000 have been added to the ranks of the jobless in the three months
from Nov 2011 to January 2012.

At least 800 people participated in the TUC march and lobby of the Lib
Dem conference this morning (Saturday) in Gateshead. Meanwhile inside
the Conference Centre the Lib Dem leadership are coming under pressure
from their own members who are not surprisingly worried that the party
faces electoral disaster.

The campaign against the government’s plans to attack Health Service
Pensions has been strengthened over the last few days as the results of
consultation by trade unions and professional bodies on the proposed
deal. This is despite the government’s position that they have presented
their final offer.

All eyes are on 28 March. This will see the next mass strike by
public sector workers in defence of their pensions.  Over a million
workers are likely to participate, including fire fighters, who did not
participate in theaction on 30th November.

“The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it." (Aneurin Bevan)  Despite the ambitions of Bevan’s
present day counterpart to dismantle a system of which Britain can be
proud, the words of the miner’s son seem to be holding true, considering
the widespread opposition to the implementation of the Health and
Social Care Bill. The Bill is based on government proposals to reform
the NHS, released in in July 2010 as a document titled ‘Equity and
excellence: Liberating the NHS’, more commonly known as the White Pape

The Coalition government is very keen to tell us at every
given opportunity that we are “all in this together” even as they announce cut
after cut. However, a new report published by the TUC has revealed a very
different truth about how the working class has been affected in recent years.

The latest shocking unemployment figures provide grim
evidence of the real affects of the crisis and the measures being taken by the
Coalition government to “resolve” it. Women and youth have again been hit
hardest.

For the government and the City of London, the ‘austerity’
measures are all about cold balance sheets, charts and slashing figures on
computer screens. However these cuts are also about real people facing real
misery.