The Socialist 24 August 2016

Kick out the Blairites

Kick out the Blairites

#KeepCorbyn: Answer right's attacks with firm socialist programme

Corbyn union nominations round-up and view from the workplace

#KeepCorbyn: huge support at rallies and among Labour rank and file

Black footballer's taser death: stop police racism now

Pay still below pre-crisis levels

Train fares to rise again - nationalise railways now!

£500m on civil service redundancies in two years

Them & Us

Trump in trouble - political polarisation deepens

International news in brief

Readers respond to Trotskyist red scare smears by capitalist media

Would you call G4S for help over discrimination?

The Socialist inbox

Deliveroo strike action forces bosses to back down

Junior doctors set for further strike action

A day in the life of a call centre worker

Workplace news in brief

Save our NHS!

The threat of private health insurance

Organise against secretive NHS cuts plans

Greenwich council tenants: We won't pay! We won't move!

Local estate agents back Butterfields tenants

Nottinghamshire Pride makes history

Immingham residents' housing battle

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£500m on civil service redundancies in two years

PCS strike on budget day, 20 March 2013 , photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

A civil service worker

Whitehall spent more than half a billion pounds on redundancy payments in two years, according to its own major departments' figures, recently published by the Telegraph.

The Tory paper is very specific in its outrage over who gets large government payouts. Its owners have been parasites on public funds for generations.

They raise a good point though. How many nurses, doctors, teachers or firefighters could be funded with the money spent on firing civil servants desperately required to carry out the basic functions of the state?

Just three people, a bunch of Whitehall apparatchiks Cameron called his 'advisors', received £1.3 million - before transferring straight to another department after his resignation. Meanwhile, around 90,000 workers have been laid off since 2010, with proposals for another 100,000 despite increasing workloads.

We demand an end to the contempt of the 1% for our public servants. Reverse all public service cuts and sell-offs.

When the ruling class agitates for an end to government profligacy, it means sacking workers without proper redundancy payments. In fact, bosses are already developing policy proposals to cut redundancy payments, despite having stated the budget is balanced following the pensions dispute of 2011.

When the government cuts funds from our public services, it's because we need to "pay down the deficit" or because "the last Labour government overspent". They dream of creating an emptied-out 'night-watchman state' that can only really exist in the fantasies of free marketeers like George Osborne and Sajid Javid.

In reality, public sector cuts are made to fund the next payout or tax cut for the super-rich. When the establishment righteously declares we need to be 'doing more for less', what it really means is that bosses should be getting more for less.

In this issue

#KeepCorbyn

Kick out the Blairites