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From The Socialist newspaper, 28 October 2020
Tory 'Starve a Kid to Save a Quid' scheme
End child poverty, photo Staff Sgt Alex Fox Echols/USAF/CC (Click to enlarge)
The 322 Tory MPs who voted against extending free school meals are on base salaries of £81,932 a year - before ministerial bonuses, expenses, and other income.
A full-time worker on the over-25 minimum wage earns around £17,000 a year. Those forced to claim Universal Credit receive up to £5,000 a year to live on, plus around £3,000 a year for each child.
Almost a million people have signed a petition to withdraw MPs' meal subsidies. Commons menus from 2019 show steak and chips for under a tenner, or a jacket potato for less than a quid.
Over 950,000 had signed as the Socialist went to press. A similar number had signed Marcus Rashford's petition to parliament to extend free school meals into the holidays.
Pubs and restaurants across Britain are barring their MPs for voting against free school meals extension. One pub in Rishi Sunak's constituency has banned him for life.
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The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
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In The Socialist 28 October 2020:
What we think
Coronavirus News
Don't let Tories starve our kids
Tory 'Starve a Kid to Save a Quid' scheme
Boots launches £120, 12-minute Covid test
Workplace News
Backing Hugo Pierre for Unison general secretary
Royal Mail: No more behind closed doors talks
Fight Leeds Labour council's massive cuts
News
NHS England's £1bn winter shortfall: we need union action, not platitudes!
BAME Covid deaths due to capitalist inequality, confirms government
Mayor and government compete to attack London transport: fight for no cuts!
Grenfell watch: landlord's £800,000 saving
Food Standards
Food and a capitalist Brexit: No trust in Tory Deals!
International News
"We need a leadership that comes from the movement"
Bolivia elections: Crushing defeat for the right as MAS secures landslide victory
Campaigns
Online youth rally says: We won't pay with our futures
Birmingham: 'Refund our fees' protests
Solidarity with the movement in Nigeria
Evicted students can fight back and win
Waltham Forest Save Our Square:
Bristol jobs protest: We want 100% pay
Readers' Opinion
One rule for them, and another for us
Books that inspired me: Germinal
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2020