Living in Britain in the 21st century we should all at least expect to have decent a
decent place to live at an affordable price. Having your own place should not be
down to luck or to a ‘dream’ of owning your own home: it should be your
right. We all should expect that amidst the massive wealth of British
society all people who live here can at least have a decent home – is
this really too much to ask?
The nearly £2 billion gap between Tube Lines’ £7.2 billion
costs estimate and the maximum £5.5 billion the PPP arbiter says it should get
raises fears for planned Tube upgrades.
The Tube Lines
estimate is a massive £3.1 billion higher – £2.5 billion taking inflation into
account – than that of London Underground, which called for the arbiter’s early
guidance.
The
Observer (17.08.08) ran a front page headline “Health chief attacks drug giants
over huge profits.” Sir Michael Rawlins hit out after the National Institute
for Clinical Excellence (NICE) was accused of ‘barbarism’ for refusing to
approve expensive kidney drugs. NICE said the drugs ‘only’ gave the patient an
extra few months of life. We wonder if they would be so insouciant if it were their
lives on the line?
“We
are told we are being mean all the time, but what nobody mentions is why the
drugs are so expensive,” Rawlins commented.
£8.80 for a 39 hour week!
The ‘Guardian’ reported (30.06.08) “After a 39-hour week, one man took home
£8.80 when his monthly rent of £155 was deducted in one week. Another man
worked a 70-hour week, earning £420, but was not paid overtime and after having
£228 deducted for repayment on tools was left with £66. A third man worked a
40-hour week but was left with £13 after paying £155 for a month’s rent. As
self-employed workers they received no holiday pay.
Alan Ritchie, general secretary of Ucatt, said: "This case is the worst
we have seen. These workers were virtually destitute.
The SNP victory
in the Glasgow East by-election certainly marks a new low in the recent history
of the Scottish Labour Party but the question is now posed: does it mark the
seismic shift in Scottish politics that Alex Salmond has declared?
Last week 500 bus workers protested in central London demanding better pay and conditions.
Jack London
is best known as the writer of what he called his ‘dog books,’ such as ‘Call of
the Wild’ and White Fang’. As this biographical sketch shows, he was a
convinced socialist till his death in 1916. Reader will find that he learned
his socialism from a very convincing school – the school of hard knocks. Here
he sums up the lessons of his life.
Just
when you think it can’t get any worse for Gordon Brown, it does. New Labour has
succeeded in losing the Glasgow East by-election. Glasgow East is a solid
working class area with one of the finest labour movement traditions on the
country. It has been a Labour heartland for generations.
Wasn’t it good of
Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, not to accept a pay rise of
£100,000? What a model/example of restraint to us all! Instead he would only
take 2.5% pay increase each year for the next five years, out of his annual
salary of £289,551. We must feel sorry for him. That means he will only get a
bit more than £7,000 pay increase this year. How did anyone work out that he
should get such a pay rise in the first place? The way the economy has been going
over the last year, it can’t be.
Readers of Socialist Appeal would have heard the
headlines this week about the delay in supplying the SATs results for schools
and the damage that this is causing. Apart from the late delivery, and the
whole issue that SATs as a form of assessment are not good education in the
first place, one of the critical issues about the current situation has largely
been missing from these headline reports.
The second World on Your
Doorstep (WOYD) festival took place in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, over the
weekend of the 19th and 20th July. WOYD is a world music festival, celebrating
the diverse cultures, music and traditions of West Yorkshire and the long
history of migration into the area from all parts of the world.
Hundreds of striking Unison and Unite members filled the
large hall of Friends’ Meeting House in Euston on Wednesday afternoon following
a march through west central London. The turnout in and of itself was
impressive considering most of the strikers had been on picket duty since early
morning. The mood was buoyant and electric, with foot-stomping, flag-waving and
chanting while we waited for the meeting to start. I have not been to a strike
rally where the mood was so militant and combative since the miners’ strike.