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Our time

8 June 2017 will be a time to finally deliver our verdict on those who have made us pay with our jobs, pensions, terms and conditions, and public services, as our reward for bailing out the few greedy bankers who gambled, lost and still came out smelling of roses.

Let's make May pay for her gamble. It's our time to make a difference by voting for Corbyn on 8 June 2017.

'Rebel with a Cause', Rotherham

Manchester answers

No terror poster (Click to enlarge)

As we were finishing a successful campaign stall in defence of the NHS and opposing terror and war in Morley, near Leeds, Socialist Party members were approached by a woman and her daughter.

As our conversation went on, we found out they had both been at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester that fateful Monday, in close proximity to where the bomb had gone off. Both were fortunately unscathed, though shaken.

Her daughter hadn't wanted to leave the house that morning, but she was determined for them to return to normal life, otherwise "the terrorists get what they want."

But she also wanted to inform herself about what was going on around the world that could bring things to this state of affairs. She agreed with us about the disastrous military interventions in the Middle East and north Africa which had destabilised those regions, commenting: "They've only caused more misery. Why can't we just have world peace?"

She was also reassured by how ordinary people and the emergency services had responded to help people - and opposed the Tory cutbacks, signing our petition against the 'STP' health plans and their further cuts.

Theresa May is trying to look 'prime ministerial' in response to the atrocity in Manchester. However, many people are seeing through the cracks in her "strong and stable" facade and are searching out real answers to the problems they face rather than empty phrases.

Iain Dalton, Leeds

Clarke v Corbyn

BBC flagship programme Newsnight revealed its anti-Corbyn desperation by giving free marketeer and Iraq-war defender Blairite former home secretary Charles Clarke a platform to attack Jeremy Corbyn over his so-called politicising of the Manchester tragedy.

How they tracked Clarke down remains a mystery as he is the invisible man of British politics, but the use of taxpayers' resources is unlimited when it comes to attacking JC. This is precisely the time when serious analysis is required to identify why and how such a dehumanised monster has inflicted such horror on innocents.

Naturally, Blairite Labour MPs, Lib Dem Farron and the Tories have joined in the condemnation of JC. They fear their role in reckless Middle East interventions and their protection of the brutal regime of Saudi Arabia which nurtures terrorism will be exposed.

They will become more desperate as the polls show the gap narrowing between Corbyn and May.

Tony Mulhearn, Liverpool

Dementia tax

photo Joe D Miles for CQC (Creative Commons) (Click to enlarge)

I am a volunteer minibus driver for Age UK once or twice a week. I pick up local elderly people and take them to a day care centre where they are looked after for the day.

Most of them have carers at home, often their own relatives, but also many of them require the local council to send in professional carers at least twice a day. This of course costs money, as well as the council paying some of the costs of the day centre.

Already, with the council cutting its social care budget, many of those who used to get support no longer do.

So what are the Tories proposing?

The Tory proposals on social care will most affect older people (and the not so old) who own their own home and need a professional carer to help them with dressing, bathing and eating.

For example, there are four or five times as many needing care in the home as there are in care homes.

At the moment the cost of care at home is calculated by the level of the service user's savings - anything over £23,000, and nothing else. So when they die their home can be passed on to the children intact, an important proviso when you consider the housing crisis affecting many people.

Those who are in care homes full-time have different arrangements.

But the Tories are proposing instead to say that the costs of care for those in their own homes will now be taken out of the sale of their home after they are dead, and the most the relatives will get is £100,000 of the sale value - hardly enough to buy a dog kennel in the current housing market.

May hoped that this wouldn't be noticed by the majority of those affected. But it is not working. It is one of the reasons why Corbyn's Labour is narrowing the gap in the polls.

Bill Mullins, Southwark, south London

Donate to the Socialist Party

Finance appeal

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.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.

Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.

We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our Fighting Fund.