Cameron’s Falkland provocation
The decision of the Cameron government
to deploy HMS Dauntless off the coast of the Falklands Islands in the
South Atlantic represents a gratuitous provocation to the people of
Argentina.
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The decision of the Cameron government
to deploy HMS Dauntless off the coast of the Falklands Islands in the
South Atlantic represents a gratuitous provocation to the people of
Argentina.
According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), the Government has only implemented 6% of its planned cuts to date. This is an austerity programme that is ÂŁ10 billion behind schedule and which is set to last well beyond the next parliament. Although 6% is but a small step on a long road of enforced privation, already we can see the devastating effects this is having on millions of people.
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 French and German governments have been hard at work over the last
few weeks berating the Greeks for being unable to organise their
finances. Now, according to reports in today’s press, it turns out that
these self same governments have been pushing hard to get the Greek
government to spend like mad – on arms.
Conditions in Greece are becoming
desperate as unemployment continues to rise, wages and pensions are
slashed, many small businesses close and the country slides towards a
likely disorderly default. The pressure on ordinary working people is
relentless.
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.
February 11 saw 300,000 people march
in the Portuguese capital Lisbon against the reform of the labour law
and the austerity measures proposed by the government as part of the
bailout agreed with the troika. The CGTP trade union, which
organised the demonstration under the slogan of “no to exploitation,
inequality and impoverishment”, described it as the largest in 30 years.
The Greek crisis has now reached the point of a pre-revolutionary
situation. On Sunday we saw the biggest demonstration in the history of
Greece. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered to protest the
reactionary deal before the Athens parliament. Here was the real face of
the Greek people: workers and students, pensioners and shopkeepers,
young and old, came onto the streets to express their rage.