The Socialist 3 July 2013

Tories - cuts, Lib Dems - cuts, Labour - cuts

Tories - cuts, Lib Dems - cuts, Labour - cuts

National Shop Stewards Network seventh annual conference

RMT reaffirms support for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition

What the other half get paid

St Petersburg Pride rally attacked

Cameron and Blair's support for Kazakhstan regime blasted

Them & Us

65th anniversary of the NHS - How workers won the National Health Service

Mass street protests as Egypt is swept by revolution and counter-revolution

Teachers strike in North West

Rochdale 'Future Directions' strike solid

Model motion from the NSSN

Workplace News in brief

'Sick Of Your Boss?' week of action 8-13 July

Fighting back against hated bedroom tax

Letter to student left groups to discuss joint call for a national demo

Impressive national youth organisers meeting

Leeds: Building support for workers in South Africa

The Year of the Paper - boosting the sales of the Socialist

Fighting Fund target smashed!

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Spending review shows they're all the same:

Tories - cuts, Lib Dems - cuts, Labour - cuts

Sean Figg

Tory cuts - Lib dems cuts - Labour cuts - spending review shows they're all the same, photo The Socialist issue 772 (Click to enlarge)

What is the point of the Labour Party? Its leaders support many of the cuts being made by the Tories and Liberals. Labour councils are the transmission belts for government cuts, working out how to implement them locally.

And when Tory Chancellor George Osborne announced another £11.5 billion in cuts and extending austerity past the next general election, rather than saying 'we will tear up this spending review if we win power', Labour promised to abide by it.

These cuts will hit workers and their families hardest... again! Osborne, and now Labour too, promise more cuts to welfare spending, cuts to all government departments, hundreds of thousands more public sector job cuts and threats to universal benefits.

Fightback

This is not a reflection of overwhelming support among the millions of workers, pensioners and young people in Britain for austerity. In fact huge opposition to cuts exists.

Witness the hundreds of thousands who have marched against cuts and the millions who participated in the 2011 public sector pension strikes.

We are told cuts are 'necessary'. However, the £351 billion-increase in the total wealth of the 1,000 richest people (that's 0.003% of the adult population) since Labour's election victory in 1997 indicates this is not the case. For starters, taxing the mega-rich and the tax-avoiding corporate giants would allow jobs and services to be expanded, not cut.

Stand against them

Yet Miliband tells all those fighting cuts and opposed to austerity: don't expect anything from us! That means the rest of us have to build an alternative and we have to turn to it urgently.

The Socialist Party is part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). TUSC is an electoral platform for all who want to challenge austerity, in reality planned poverty. At the RMT transport union's recent conference it voted to continue its full participation in TUSC.

TUSC is appealing for people to stand as candidates in the local council elections in May 2014 as part of a strategy of mass fightback, challenging all the keep-the-cuts parties.

TUSC appeals to all those who are suffering due to austerity, angry about losing their job, have had their hours or pay reduced, or benefits squeezed, to play a part and help.

Help build the TUSC challenge, and join the socialists.

In this issue

Socialist Party news and analysis

Tories - cuts, Lib Dems - cuts, Labour - cuts