The Socialist 13 July 2016

Organise the resistance: fight the Tories and the Blairites

Child poverty rises by 200,000 in a year

Welsh Assembly to scrap 'right to buy'

Nine-month prison sentence for fleeing ethnic cleansing

HSBC jailbreak

Rail fail

What we saw: Angela Eagle Facebook meme

Them & Us

Fight racism: for jobs, homes and services for all

Police racism still lethal in Britain

Majority support migrants staying - fight hate crime

Step up the campaign to back Corbyn's fight

Tory coronation is attempt at stability that can't work

Chilcot Iraq report: More piles of evidence against the blood-soaked war for oil

Angry prison officers walk out over reforms

New threat to impose junior doctors contract must be met with strike action

Vote Chas Berry for Napo national chair

Unite policy conference 2016: Blairite coup, Trident and cuts dominate opening days

Workplace news in brief

Spain: Disappointment for left in re-run general election

CWI in brief

Thousands mobilising to #KeepCorbyn

Why I joined: "I no longer felt isolated from politics"

Fight back is on to save NHS heart services

Sales of the Socialist through the roof since the referendum

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Child poverty rises by 200,000 in a year

photo Matt J Newman/Creative Commons (Click to enlarge)

Lucy Nuttall

In the space of just one year, 2014 to 2015, the number of children living in poverty in the UK has risen by a staggering 200,000. This brings the total number to 3.9 million, according to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

A YouGov survey earlier this year reported that four out of five teachers in England and Wales see children arriving at school hungry. These damning statistics show the abject failure of capitalism to provide a decent standard of living for the 99%.

In response to these rising levels of deprivation, Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb stressed the importance of understanding "the root causes of poverty". His career as a Tory politician revolves around enforcing them! Ceaseless austerity, privatisation and welfare cuts cause immense suffering for ordinary people, transferring wealth from the poorest and most vulnerable to a tiny super-rich minority.

Many Tory policies are a direct attack on poor families, making it an increasingly difficult struggle for parents to provide for their children.

For example, limiting child tax credits and housing benefit to just two children. The draconian Housing Act which will effectively end social housing, crushing working class communities. And the discriminatory bedroom tax punishing social housing tenants, especially households with disabled members.

Children - and all working class people - deserve a life free from poverty. The Socialist Party calls for an immediate £10 an hour minimum wage, secure jobs and housing for all, and the reversal of all austerity and privatisation.

We link this to the need for a fundamentally different society, run in the interests of the working class. Only by fighting for a socialist world can we permanently end poverty.

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Child poverty rises by 200,000 in a year