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From The Socialist newspaper, 16 January 2019
Them & Us
Them and us fishes, photo Suzanne Beishon (Click to enlarge)
Cancer ward wait
If you've got cancer and a few grand lying around, private health firm HCA advertises bowel surgery in London for just £20,045. Meanwhile, private providers in the NHS cherry-pick easy cases - leaving the impoverished public providers to deal with the rest.
And cancer patients in England face the worst NHS waiting times on record. Over 18,000 suspected cancer sufferers wait longer than the one-month target for treatment, according to new NHS England data.
Outsourcing outpouring
The value of public contracts awarded to vulture outsourcers has exploded by 53% in a year, says general union GMB. After leeching £62 billion in 2016-17, the privateers drained £95 billion in 2017-18!
Readers will recall that the latter financial year concluded with the total collapse of super-outsourcer Carillion.
Its multimillionaire bosses are still at large - while workers ended up in the scrapheap.
Toxic tube
photo Petr Kratochvil/CC (Click to enlarge)
Toxic 'particulate pollution' in London Underground stations could be up to 30 times higher than beside busy roads! The Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants found 492 micrograms per cubic metre in Hampstead, the deepest station, compared to just 16 micrograms at the average capital roadside.
But don't all Londoners have to use the tube? No. Commuting bosses could hire a Mercedes V class from Belgravia Chauffeurs at just £2,495 for a five-day booking! Quite the bargain.
Universal Credit conquest
In another humiliation for the Tories, even the judiciary has come out against part of their Universal Credit welfare attacks.
The High Court ruled on 11 January that the nonsensical system which calculates income monthly - even when paycheques are not - does indeed wrongly cause claimants to lose money.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd has also promised a partial rollback on Universal Credit's two-child limit for child support.
If your kids were born before April 2017, the Tories will now pay you a pittance for each, not just the first two. They try to play us off against each other even as they squirm to make concessions.
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In The Socialist 16 January 2019:
What we think
May facing Brexit vote catastrophe
Socialist Party news and analysis
After Grenfell, thousands still in high-rise firetrap blocks
Universal Credit: robbing the working class
30% of English secondaries in deficit
Socialist Party reports and campaigns
A key task - strengthen Tamil Solidarity campaign
Council cuts
Glasgow: huge turnout to fight closure of Whitehill pool
Surrey: save our children's centres
Caerphilly: right-wing Islwyn Labour councillors fight to impose cuts
Nothing to declare? Dodgy councillors hide vested interests
North Tyneside: march to save our footbridge
Socialist history
The 1979 'Winter of Discontent'
International socialist news and analysis
USA: federal workers without pay - but immediate mass action can end shutdown
India: biggest general strike ever
France: union-led action and assemblies can defeat Macron
Mexico: police silence on horrific attack on CWI member
Workplace news and analysis
Unions must fight and demand nationalisation to save thousands of car industry jobs
Hundreds join Manc RMT picket line in solidarity after far-right attack
UCU: Vote Yes and Yes in the higher education pay and equality ballot
Opinion
Sorry to Bother You: "Socialist film Botox that made me feel young again"
Brexit: The Uncivil War - an interesting but inaccurate portrayal of EU referendum
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