Over 300 people attended the Newcastle protest against the Bedroom Tax on afternoon of Saturday 16th March. 660,000 households nationally are likely to be affected by the changes to housing benefit, which are designed to impact on some of the most vulnerable people in society. Terry McPartlan, member of Unison (personal capacity), the public sector union, reports.
Over 300 people attended the Newcastle protest against the Bedroom Tax on afternoon of Saturday 16th March. 660,000 households nationally are likely to be affected by the changes to housing benefit, which are designed to impact on some of the most vulnerable people in society.
In areas like Tyneside, where there are large concentrations of council and social housing, high unemployment and poverty already, further impositions such as this will create more problems for the poorest families. Already council workers are reporting that dozens of tenants are phoning in with worries about the implications of what is effectively another Tory Poll Tax.
Among the demonstrators were several disabled people and housing workers, and people from Tyneside and further afield in Northumberland. The protest in Newcastle was one of several taking place in cities across the country against the bedroom tax, and is merely the latest is a series of demonstrations against cuts and government impositions.
Already most of the North East is a no go zone for the Tories and the Lib Dems. Ironically, Grey’s monument, where most of these demonstrations have taken place was built in 1932 supposedly as a commemoration of “a century of social peace”, which is very inaccurate anyway.
One thing is for certain: the capitalist crisis and the Coalition’s austerity programme are creating the conditions for a political, industrial and social explosion. The need for a genuine socialist alternative has never been more evident.
