The Socialist 8 January 2020

Climate change. Poverty. War. Capitalism must go - fight for socialism

Suleimani's assassination - Middle East thrown into turmoil

Trump attacks Iran - London protest: We need workers' action against war and austerity

Build union resistance to Tory attacks

Defend the right to strike

Defend the right to strike! - RMT and NSSN lobby parliament

2020: Class struggles and capitalist instability will intensify

Labour leadership election

Capitalism must go - fight for socialism

Trouble ahead for Johnson: Brexit is far from 'done'

Tory minimum wage hike not enough

Northern Rail franchise in question: nationalise the railways!

Children need intensive care? We don't care!

Shell pays £0 corporation tax, and plans huge hike in fossil output

Ignore the hype - austerity goes on: organise to resist

International wave of revolt continues

What next after the general election, for PCS and the left

Council concedes to striking winter gritters' demands

West Midlands RMT guards jobs saved

All we want for Christmas is a no-strings pay rise

Anti-academy strike action in Newham

Socialist Party members out on the streets

£50,240 - a new fighting fund record

Avenue of trees saved!

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Ignore the hype - austerity goes on: organise to resist it

End austerity now, photo Mary Finch (Click to enlarge)

It's not just the Socialist that is challenging Johnson's claims that he will end austerity and grow the economy. According to the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, winning the election was "the easy bit."

Writing in the Financial Times the day after the election, he says: "With the economy stagnating, public services struggling after nearly a decade of austerity... there will not be much scope for generosity."

He goes on to state that "an end to austerity... does not mean spending will rise to anything like previous levels. It just means that no further cuts are planned. Outside health, spending on public services will still be something like 15% down on 2010."

He finishes by saying: "What would really blow the fiscal framework out of the water, though, would be an economic slowdown - perhaps precipitated by Brexit or just because we are due one...

"Dealing with a recession now, after years of disappointing growth, a decade of stagnating earnings, debt at twice its previous level and public services struggling after the deepest and most prolonged period of cuts in modern history, would challenge any government."

So there we have it.

More proof that we have to organise now to resist the onslaught of attacks that are coming our way from this Tory government that, just like the others, will do everything in its power to make working-class people pay the price of an economic and political system that is rotten to the core.

In this issue

Iran

Suleimani's assassination - Middle East thrown into turmoil