Britain

Campaigners, trade unionists, and local
residents are set to take to the streets in Huntingdon this Saturday
10th July to
protest against plans to franchise the management of Hinchingbrooke
Hospital to
the private sector.

The draconian budget rolled out in June is only the first instalment in
a five year programme of austerity to be inflicted upon the British
people. The Tory-dominated government is telling us that the economy is
in a hole. This is true. They are softening us up for drastic cuts in
public spending, saying we can’t afford it and (in the words of
Thatcher) that there is no alternative. This is a lie.

We conclude Dan Morley’s three part study of the crisis inside UK housing.

Here is part two of a three part article looking at the crisis in UK housing today.

Over the past few days the labour and trade union movement
in Coventry has begun to move into action to mobilise working people against
the cuts announced by the Lib-Con government. The mass Unite rally last Saturday,
June 19^th, already reported on the Socialist Appeal website, was the
first step.

“Open for business.” These were the words spoken by
chancellor George Osborne as he delivered the most vicious anti-working class
budget for generations – a budget for big business indeed!

Throughout the four hours of the indoor rally at the Methodist Central
Hall in Coventry on Saturday June 19th, some 140 trade unionists and
members of
Coventry communities came together and participated. The rally had been
convened
by the Unite union to highlight the ongoing dispute between youth
workers
organised in the CYWU section of Unite and Coventry City Council.

The question of housing in Britain
today reveals much about the character of the crisis that permeates our
entire
society. Through the medium of housing we can see almost every problem
our
society faces – from inequality to out of control speculation, health
problems
to overcrowding, groaning infrastructures to gross regional imbalances
and
distortions. Dan Morley, in the first of a three part article, looks at the situation facing the housing market today.