Britain the worst place to live...

Not in my wildest dreams’, oh, correction nightmares’, did I ever think that one day on this blog I would be using the Scum (Sun) Newspaper as a source of information; well the unimaginable has happened, may there be mercy on my sole, as well as my human embodiment!”

This is a newspaper which you will know is produced and owned by the anti-Christ and agent of world capitalism, the one and only Rupert Murdoch and his News International Corporation.

If I have to have a lasting memory of this peace of trash, then it will be of the time that an accomplice who joined with yours truly in carrying out a daring and audacious plan to steal from outside Mile End Tube Station bundles that had been dropped-off in the dead of the night during the Wapping dispute; things don’t always go as planed do they; needless to say we were caught by the police, who were waiting for us, oh, well that’s another story, and I promise that I will get around and undertake writing about it sometime soon!”

However, that as it maybe; News International Corporation is not the subject that I wish to shine the light upon, but rather a story that the Scum title carried today and proclaimed Britain as the worst place to live in the whole of Europe. Surprised, or taken unawares, suddenly feeling the wonder of astonishment?”

Well it’s hardily surprising is it, when you think of the last 30 years of government and in particular the 13 years of New Labour, attacking the poor and featherbedding the extremely rich.

Once the envoy and workshop of the world, we are now being beaten into the slave shop of modern capitalism, in what has become an aggressive competitive drive that has been intensified to meet the greedy needs of capitalism, irrespective of any considerations for the vast majority of us!”

That’s the way capitalism works!”

So is it any wonder, or did the Scum newspaper think they were informing there readers of something that hasn’t already dawned on and become clear to the many, that Britain is indeed the worst place to live in Europe, if not the world, the universe!”

Only today, I was informed by a friend who works for DWP at a local dole office, that workers have been told that management expect them to do much more and ensure that more people are thrown of benefits, which is all part of the cuts strategy, cut’s that will make Britain a very nasty, uncomfortable place to live in, be under no illusion about that!”

Well here is the link to the Scum article, and we take no responsibility for damage caused to your eyesight.

The Scum             

Government a deception by creating illusory ideas.

As a radical supporter of political and social revolution; and I must say; and as one who no longer holds any illusions in our so-called parliamentary democracy, which is the act of deluding; a deception by creating illusory ideas like a pit of quick-sand that the many still fall into, and sadly will do for some time yet to come unfortunately. So until a majority start to understand and see that another world is possible, I dare say then, that we will have to put up with a few more elections. And if that’s the case then the one thing that I hope and pray for and please god, is that at the next general election the Liberal/Democrats are wiped of the political map. This would be a very fitting organic phenomenon and end to a party that has allowed and participated in partnership with the true party of capitalism to rocket launch the most vindictive class war attack on the working classes.

I am reminded of this when I read the comments of Employment Minister Chris Grayling referring to today’s revelation that there has been a rise in employment as apparently official figures revealed 286,000 more people secured jobs as unemployment fell by less than expected in the quarter, down 8,000 to 2.47 million, while the closely (government) watched Jobseeker's Allowance claimant count rose by an unexpected 2,300 last month to 1.47 million, establishing the first increase since January, and I think that we will start to see that climb upward with gradual and continuous advance in the months ahead. The figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggested the leap in employment came largely as those classed as economically inactive, such as students, took on jobs. These jobs in all probability would have been by and large part-time and or temporary. Bosses are always attracted to student labour at this time of the year, many employment rights such as the right to claim unfair dismissal and redundancy are waved for starters, and most are supplied by an agency – this part-time, fixed-term, home-working and very casual/seasonal work hardly counts in my book.

So when Chris Grayling says that "today's jump in employment, is driven by the private sector, he simply is talking cheesy crap!”

One other thing that’s worrying me about Grayling, is his enunciating and misleading statement; that the system the government inherited is failing to get people on welfare into jobs.

You have got that wrong Grayling; it’s the system of capitalism of which we have said many times on this blog, which is failing people, and that’s why at the beginning of this post and now at it’s end I will say it again; our so-called parliamentary democracy, is nothing more than an act of deluding; a deception by creating illusory ideas. 

Turning his attention to the long-term unemployed to seek savings.

Just been taking in the news that Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said he intends to make further reductions to Britain’s welfare budget next month when he outlines and forges with his partners in the Con/Dem government some of the deepest spending cuts in living memory.

When I say forge, well what I mean is he will move by hammering on the Tory anvil, the unemployed, the sick, the old, poor and vulnerable who are dependent on the pittance that many have no alternative but to make do with; make no mistake these cuts particularly to those on low pay or benefits will illuminate and foster, as it seems, new social divisions of the have’s and the have not’s in our society.  

I spent nearly twenty years trying to dispel, and amongst my fellow workers, the lie that the class system has somehow miraculously disappeared. And yet today the media for reasons none other than of supporting a right wing agenda, have flagged up statistics released by Office of National Statistics that show how hard things have become for working people.

NEARLY one in five households in Britain has no one who works and is entirely dependent on benefits’. The number of work-less households rocketed by 148,000 last year to just under four million.

It means more than seven million people – including almost two million children – are now living in homes where no one is in paid employment. Of course these revelations by the media are part of a carefully planed strategy to prepare the country for the most vindictive attack on all our living standards.

Osborne has already pledged to slash 11 billion pounds  from the welfare budget by 2015, targeting tax credits to middle income families and housing benefits.  The extra cuts would amount to about 4 billion pounds.

Osborne said he would turn his attention to the long-term unemployed to seek savings.

“There are five million people living on permanent out-of- work benefits,” he said. “That is a tragedy for them and fiscally unsustainable for us as a country -- we can’t afford it anymore.”  

But George, how about this; we can’t afford capitalism anymore!”  

Author's suicide 'due to slash in benefits'

The following article is from the New.scotsman.com. I’m reproducing it because not only is it very sad and disturbing, but is, or at least as far as I’m concerned, a disgrace; that fills me with absolute rage. That we live in such a society that not only allows, but pushes by applying force in order to move something away from those in most need and in what is still the fifth richest nation in the world. This is the second time life has been needlessly lost due to and after such harsh treatment has been handed out to those forced, and yes, I do say forced to survive on means-tested benefits; and in such a short period of time; the last time, we have mention before, was of a young pregnant mother who jumped from a building in Hackney following the decision by the DWP to not award her, any benefits. These are suicides 'due to the cutting with sweeping strokes, and as if with an axe or machete the lifeline of many. Let’s make no mistake about that!”

The direction that we are heading in is beginning to look disturbingly horrible!”  

FRIENDS of an acclaimed Scottish writer have accused the new government's crackdown on welfare benefits of being a factor in his suicide.

Paul Reekie, who, along with Irvine Welsh, was part of a wave of young Scottish authors who rose to international prominence in the 1990s, killed himself in his Edinburgh home last month.

The Leith-based writer and poet, who was 48, left no suicide note but friends say letters informing him that his welfare benefits were to be halted were found close to his body.

Reekie's former publisher Kevin Williamson believes the actions of Chancellor George Osborne, who has introduced unprecedented measures to slash Britain's welfare bill, helped to push his close friend and literary collaborator towards taking his own life.

The founder of the Rebel Inc publishing label has sent a strongly worded letter to Osborne, linking his policies to Reekie's death.

The letter states: "It has come to my attention that while many of my friends and I were at the funeral of our good friend Paul Reekie, aged 48, it would appear that you were giving a speech in Parliament announcing your intentions to slash the benefits paid to the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.

"I thought I would let you know that Paul took his own life. He didn't leave a note but he laid out two letters on his table. One was notifying him that his housing benefit had been stopped. The other was notifying him that his incapacity benefit had been stopped.

"The reason I'm writing this letter is just so you know the human cost of attacking those on benefits."

Williamson, who published Reekie's novella, Submission, in the best-selling 1996 anthology Children of Albion Rovers, said: "The letter will be binned and forgotten, but there will be loads more folk in Paul's shoes over the coming years trying to cope with unemployment, depression, house repossessions and stress."

John Wight, a friend of the late writer, said he believed Reekie had been suffering from "the after-effects of a serious assault".

Another close friend believes the letters from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) may have been the final straw for Reekie, who is thought to have been suffering from depression. In an online tribute to the devoted follower of Hibernian FC, he spoke of the last time they met, just days before he took his own life: "I knew (Paul) was lonely and wasn't too happy overall.

Return of the Chingford Skinhead (Part 4)

The one thing that we can say for sure, about the Con/Dem acquisition of power, is that they have wasted no time whatsoever in setting about attacking the welfare-state, the poor, the venerable and the unemployed. It is now well known that government departments are to cut 25% from their budgets, the finer details will be reveled in the autumn, the very season when the leaves fall from the trees; we can then expect such an attack that will rip and up-root the lives of many, with what we think will be devastating, dire and frightening consequences, no question about that!

Rats it is said; can transmit approximately 14 diseases or infections to humans - some via their fleas and the most well known Weil's disease via their urine or more rarely by biting, this government on the other hand will pass along such an incubation of cuts and bites to benefits, that we’ll all wish that we had a friend called Ben.

Who said the class war was dead, but who started it, and who now is reviving it? These are the questions that socialists everywhere must commence, introduce and pose to working people, and now, wasting no time. There isn’t a day that’s passed since the installation of this abomination they call a coalition, when welfare has not been attack in the press and media, now we are being told that the system of welfare may have to "bear the heavy load" the brunt of cuts in the so-called deficit reduction.

Oh how the Con/Dems relish their new function in government, taking the axe of a heavy bladed weapon to the head of their pray, reminds me of the film ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’.

Such a horror film was that, and I suppose it can only come from the USA, but that’s not the only horror story over there, just spare a thought for their unemployed, where it’s reported that federal unemployment benefits have began to expire, as an estimated 325,000 jobless workers have been cut off. That number will swell to 1.25 million by the end of the month unless Congress extends the benefits. The Senate, so far, has failed to act. Some senators, including Democrats, have balked at an unrelated provision that would begin to close a tax loophole enjoyed by some of the richest Americans. Desperately needed unemployment benefits have been held hostage to a tax break for the rich, proving that it’s the same the world over the poor pay for the rich!

So let me get this right, first we have quantitative easing and bailing out the robbing banks, then, which is now, we are to have quantitative squeezing, the cutting and chopping already under way with the executioner in pursuit of a death warrant for the rest, (lettre de cachet) to be announced in the autumnal equinox or thereabouts.

The coming wave of cuts, which will increase unemployment and sharpen social inequality on what I consider an unimaginable scale, is the end of welfare as we know it, fought and won over many years by a very different Labour and trade union movement that operated within the parameter of reform and winning elections within a capitalist state system putting it simply. Its undoing is its failing, and coming up with an epitaph for the headstone I’ve penciled in: ‘From the cradle to the grave’. However let me just say that death is not the end, if like me you think upon those words of Karl Marx: ‘Capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction’. These may become the words on the headstone of the capitalist system instead. But for that to happen, socialists must now start to sharpen the pencil of argument and walk out of the dead-end cul de sac of reformism, and tell it as it really is. We must strive as never before to explain why it is that ordinary people's beliefs are those that serve the interests of the dominant class. For example, the real function of education and schools is to produce docile citizens who will work hard and not complain. The function of universities is to create a mandarin class of educated middle managers to carry out the day-to-day administration of powerful people's affairs. The judicial system does an analogous job: it decides what constitutes crime and inflicts what it considers appropriate punishment. The function of newspapers and television is to make the powerful invisible, or to report only what powerful people want ordinary people to hear, or to provide mindless entertainments and, most importantly, advertisements to distract ordinary people from their real wants and needs.

There is a wind blowing, for now a gentle soft and mild breeze, and just before it becomes hurricane, cyclone force, and you have read this far we say don’t ever take your eye of the ball, lift your sights high and the likes of the Chingford Skinhead can be taken on!

Return of the Chingford Skinhead (Part 3)

She was only a grocer’s daughter; as the saying goes, but Mrs. Thatcher became much, much more than that. It’s funny really, whenever I’m in conversation with anyone about her; the one thing that everyone remembers her for, is of course taking the free school-milk away from children, but we all know that this Iconic Tory Cast-Iron Maiden of Capitalism who proceeding prime ministers clamor to be photographed with outside the door to number 10, delivered more than just the seized milk to her class; we all know that she did a great deal more harm, which truthfully has effected every single one of us, even still today some thirty years after becoming our first women prime minister. During the miner’s strike I had the good fortune of meeting a young striking miner from Derbyshire, who came to London to help-out raising support and funds for that noble battle, he was only 17 as I do recall, and in my mind remains a credit to his generation, and I often wonder all these years latter how has life panned-out for him, although the one thing that I do know for sure, and that’s, he’ll no longer be a miner, and it’s ironic then, that not only did Thatcher deprived him of milk as a child, but of his job and the means to make a living latter in life.

Oh, Mrs. Thatcher you do remind me of Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations, every time I see you with Tony, Gordon and now David then I thinks of Miss Havisham’s ultimate fate: In the heat of the confrontation, Miss Havisham stands too close to the fire, which in turn lights her dress on fire. Pip heroically saves her, but she later dies from her burn injuries;’ and only if; would indeed be such a nasty thought to entertain?

Enough then of Thatcher, and let’s move on to the present here and now, and the equally odious and what I believe will become so obvious in the not too distant fullness of time, the repressive regime of David Cameron and his Con/Dem coalition!

In my last post, we highlighted and examined the new organisation of ministers now installed under the burnished and renewed Iain Duncan Smith at the DWP, and suggested that this collection of mercantile, militant patriots of profit will endeavor to hit out hard, and upon those who for one reason or another have become dependent (through no fault of their own) on state benefits, these include, pensioners, disabled and the unemployed. It is clear that an assault will be surmounted in due course, with much media promotion and talk of welfare cuts being thrown around in preparing the groundwork in an attempt to lessen and decrease public shock, stemming off they hope any resistance.

My guess is that direct cuts to all benefits are now on the cards, such cuts that will bulldoze thousands into cascading and grinding poverty of which we have not seen or experienced since the so-called hungry 1930s of the last century. The unemployed in particular will be targeted as never before, made to jump through hoops like performing seals at the circus, we should remember that the New Labour project spent 13 long years cold-bloodily arm-twisting the unemployed into low-paid employment, and turning their backs on the trades union movement with the complete refusal to repeal or reverse the laws inhibiting and suppressing workers democratic organisation in the workplace. They bought trade union leaders off with the complete nonsense of the minimum wage, and in the dying, decaying days of the Brown administration introduced unbelievably (maybe not) legislation that would force working people to work for benefits or suffer sanctions; an attempt which failed to reassure the city, media moguls and big businessman that they could still be relied upon to deliver capitalism in the modern world, and alas now after the election sit on the opposite green benches, leaderless, directionless and totally bankrupt. Brown’s big idea; was to have a government of all the talents, so he invited into government and made ministers of our class enemy, amongst them were Sir Digby Jones former director general of the Confederation of British Industry, Lord Lester of Herne Hill and Liberal Democrat peer, Baroness Neuberger yet another Liberal Democrat peer, Admiral Sir Alan West formerly First Sea Lord and head of the Royal Navy at the time of the Iraq invasion (even though he harboured strong concerns about the war ), and towards New Labour’s end game Alan Sugar as (the black Baron as I like to call him) Baron Sugar and of course not forgetting Lord Freud one of a clutch of bankers who New Labour brought in to use their expertise (presumably their expertise in mucking up the banking system and the rest of the economy along with it) in the service of government. Freud was let loose on welfare reform and as he said: “I didn’t know anything about welfare at all when I started.” he acknowledged, “but that may have been an advantage...In a funny way the solution was obvious.”

The resolution, according to Freud, was twofold:

First, force the unemployed back to work with benefit cuts and workfare, and then feather one's nest or rather his friends in the private sector whilst doing so.

Freud or David Freud as he was known before joining the Tories and being elevated to the House of Lords is now a minister at the DWP, which if anything is a clear signal that the coalition intends to be effectual and very tough with the unemployed and at a time whilst unemployment escalates both as a result of their polices and the general crises of world capitalism.

Now tomorrow the coalition and rich kid George Osborne, present to the House of Commons their emergency budget, and heavens above just why this is called an emergency budget is anybody’s guess, probably it’s part of the conjuring trick of deception that is a hallmark and characteristic of the two parties now merged into one with the sole intention of working to sustain capitalism here and abroad. And when we talk of deception, I was wondering just how many people voted for the Lib/Dem’s to keep the Tories out, and how many of them would vote for then today?

However I will be looking for perceptible indications of something that signals setting off an attack on the unemployed, this may or may not be apparent in the budget tomorrow as I understand a departmental fiscal review won’t be completed until September, but we will see!



To be continued…

Return of the Chingford Skinhead (Part 2)

If we read and decipher between the lines of the almost daily newspaper and in general media converge of the Con/Dem coalitions impending and imminent "close at hand " austerity measures, it’s not hard to ascertain that the unemployed and the alleged eight million dependants of some state benefit or another, which includes pensioners, disabled and long-term sick are to be singled out, hit and made to pay for the crisis of capitalism, and a crisis not of their making!

In effect this government intendeds to give the axe and launch an attack on the most vulnerable and undefended sections of our society. They will use this opportunity to further undermine and dismantle the welfare state, and as we have come to know it, and in times of hardship have been able to depend on its safety net, as they used to say from the cradle to the grave.

The only welfare that matters to this and previous governments, is the welfare of the Banks and Financial Institutions, the very parasites and leeches that live on a host (the working class); and obtains nourishment from the host without the host benefiting, these are indeed the real spongers of our so-called sick society.

And when I say sick that’s exactly what I mean, only in a sick society, will a person be allowed to commit suicide whilst not one of our honourable legislators blinks an eyelid, this was the case when a pregnant mum jumped to her death clutching her baby son after her benefits were stopped last year. Just to recapitulate: Philosophy graduate Christelle Pardo, 32, plunged from the balcony of her sister's third-floor flat in Hackney, east London, killing herself and five-monthold Kayjah.

‘Her sister Olaya said: "She was upset and stressed because she felt that she didn't exist. If it hadn't been for me she would have been out on the street."

Miss Pardo had been claiming Job Seeker's Allowance (JSA) since leaving London Metropolitan University in May 2008.

She became pregnant shortly afterwards, but in December her JSA was withdrawn because she was within 11 weeks of giving birth and deemed unable to work.

As a result she lost her housing benefit and her claim for income support was refused.’ (Daily Mirror 2009).

They say that a leopard (Panthera Pardus) never changes its spots don’t they, well I would put this to every member of the Labour Party, who still thinks that the party is the chariot of change, and then say never! They started to hound and punish those of us who have no other means of living available other than to claim benefits; they introduced and passed the reforms to make amongst other things the unemployed work for their pittance, this now comes with the changing of the capitalist guard; has proven to be a gift to this administration, and they in turn will not waste any time in looking this gift horse in the mouth, we can rest assured of that!

The new regime at the Department of Works and Pensions (DWP), can be at best described as frightening, headed by Iain Duncan Smith, protégé of the Chingford Skinhead (Norman Tebbit), and hailing from the same reactionary wing that delivered un-to-us the blessed (joke) Maggie Thatcher.

When I look at the ministerial team that Smith has assembled then the averring phrase ‘you can’t make an omelet without cracking eggs’ springs to mind, although cracking heads would be more appropriate when you take a closer look at them.

Chris Grayling

The Minister for Employment, or would that be better changed to Minister for Unemployment; has responsibility for Employment and related benefits, the Work Programme, Labour market and the economy, Jobcentre Plus, Skills and the Health and Safety Executive.

What’s interesting about Grayling is that he started out politically from the SDP prior to joining the Conservative Party, and of course he meets all the necessary requirements to deal those on benefits having had his hand in the old presumptive and preverbal level of experience; dipping into the House of Commons expenses money box. He Grayling claimed for a flat in Pimlico, close to the House of Commons, despite having a constituency home less than 17 miles away, and owning two buy to let properties in Wimbledon. Grayling claimed over £100,000 for the flat between 2001 and 2007. The Daily Mirror reported that Grayling would benefit from the increase in the price of the flat, at least £100,000. Grayling says he uses the flat when "working very late" because he needs to "work very erratic and late hours most days when the House of Commons is sitting."

One other matter which must be mentioned whilst we review his curriculum vitae is the comments which he recently made in regard to telling the think-tank Centre for Policy Studies that owners of bed and breakfasts should have the right to turn away gay couples. Grayling said:

"I personally always took the view that, if you look at the case of should a Christian hotel owner have the right to exclude a gay couple from a hotel, I took the view that if it's a question of somebody who's doing a B&B in their own home, that individual should have the right to decide who does and who doesn't come into their own home."

Steve Webb

Now Steve Webb is number three in the peaking order at the DWP and a coalition member drawn from the Liberal Democrats side. He mainly is responsible for Pensions and related benefits and the Social Fund. Steve Webb is one of the contributors to the right wing Orange Book (2004) and is the author of a chapter in The Future of the NHS; other contributors include Patricia Hewitt (Labour), David Lansley (Conservative) and the Secretary of State for Health, Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute and agony aunt Claire Rayner. Well what can one say about this strange collection of bed fellows, my first instincts are the old school tie and there combined class interests, which they clearly hunger to preserve and seek to serve up. I never did trust agony aunts!

For those that don’t know; The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism is a book written by a group of prominent British Liberal Democrat politicians and edited by David Laws and Paul Marshall in 2004. Beside Laws and Marshall, the contributors include Vincent Cable, Nick Clegg, Edward Davey, Chris Huhne, Susan Kramer, Mark Oaten and Steve Webb. The book was published in association with the liberal think-tank CentreForum.

In the book the group offers liberal solutions – often stressing the role of the free market – to several societal issues, such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, and globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government, the European Union and prisons. It is usually seen as the most economic liberal publication that the Liberal Democrats have produced in recent times. Such, along with its impact upon the party, it has helped cause the dividing line within the party: those who advocate a social market economy observing social liberal values such as the Beveridge Group and those (such as authors, contributors and supporters of the Orange Book) who advocate a free market economy.

Four of the five Liberal Democrat members of the Cabinet had been contributors to this book. The new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government will come as no surprise to those who have studied the development of the free-market philosophy at the core of current Lib Dem thinking. What we have seen here since the general election is the climax of a right-wing grab for power in what was formerly – albeit loosely – perceived (by some) as a progressive centre-left party.

The Liberal party of Jo Grimond, David Steel, Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy has had its inner progressive heart removed by neo-economic liberal activism and replaced by a right-wing cabal that includes Nick Clegg, Chris Huhne, Ed Davey, David Laws and Vince Cable. A coalition with the Tories was no ideological barrier to their personal ambitions. Meanwhile, supposed left-leaning Lib Dem MPs such as Simon Hughes are condemned as Tory lackeys and hypocrites.

Maria Miller

Miller is the only women member of the team, presently Minister for Disabled People, her role is self explanatory really, and not a great deal is known about her as she is just beginning to cut her ministerial teeth. However it may be too soon to know the detail of the government's policies, but we already know enough to expect them to be an even more brutal regime when it comes to forcing disabled people off benefits. And I’m sure that Miller will soon be displaying what she’s really made off, and at the expense of the disabled, make no mistake, who will be downtrodden and trampled on!

Lord Freud

The "cream of the cream" (crème de la crème). Oh yes and then there was Lord Freud decreed by the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to provide an independent (joke) review of the British welfare to work system. His kudoses called for expanded private sector involvement in the welfare system for substantial resources to be found to help those on Incapacity Benefit back into economic activity and for single parents to be required to work earlier. While his recommendations on single parents were immediately adopted and speeded up, when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in June 2007, other restructuring measures were soft-pedalled. He was later made an adviser to the government when James Purnell was appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 2008. He worked to produce a white paper, published in December 2008, which would require most people receiving benefits either to participate in some form of employment or prepare formally to find work later.

In February 2009, Freud joined the opposition Conservative Party. He was given a life peerage as Baron Freud, of Eastry in the county of Kent, and became a shadow minister for welfare in the House of Lords.

I recognise that this post is rather long which cannot be helped as I feel it’s important that we get to know and understand the direction in which the class enemy is coming from in their goal of preserving the system and tying down the vast majority who are forced to sell labour power in order to live. These are uncertain times, not just here in the UK but throughout the capitalist world and nobody is able to say what will hit us next, but what ever it is one thing is for certain, it won’t be pleasant, that‘s for sure, and the more that I look at the collection and completion of this coalition the more I realize that Parliament and its representatives is nothing more than an illustration, that socialism will never come that way!



To Be Continued…

Return of the Chingford Skinhead (Part 1)

Continuing on the theme of unemployment, not that this continues a medley with a happy beat about it, well at lest not for those of us on the receiving-end of a dole cheque and battling to get by on it’s pigeon-toed pittance. I consider that many on the so-called left, (which is a definition that I do not like using to describe my own politics, being an unadulterated socialist) positively do not grasped the frostiness, the reality that is a life spent not so much on the dole, but the experience of having to make do with very little and then somehow find a way through it all, of course it’s very much harder today in this new age of austerity. Not so much then a case of self-deprivation (refraining from worldly pleasures) but rather the instance of denial being inflicted, and no prize-winners in holding first place in a contest for approximating; authoritatively inflicted as a recurring nightmare that is geared to and tailor-made to meet the imperatives of capitalism.

Bizarre and yet not comical how a word such as ‘austerity’ lies dormant and then its groan is heard everywhere, like a rickettsial attack it immediacy pokes its method through the world as governments start deficit reduction, the next stage of holding up and maintaining the system that runs, ruins and dominates all our lives.

Two years ago throughout the world the banking system almost collapsed at the hands of that barefaced gaggle of evildoers, who stuck in their collected thumbs and pulled out a fat plum and said what good boys are we, while millions lost homes, and the lives of many broken and lost for ever, such unimaginable and rarely unreported real human tragedies lie stunned and strewed like dead bodies on a battlefield. The real anguish is that this is allowed to happen without any really effective opposition from those who say they are of the left, and for years now I’ve seen and observed them play in the dirt with a flavour of the month, the Internet is a wash with this ludicrousness, the real problem to all our collected troubles is the capitalist system, It is as it has always been, an affront to every man, woman and child that adorns the world with their very presence, but who are still denied and fleeced of so much.

Remember Norman Tebbit: Oh sorry, let’s give him his proper title the ‘Chingford Skinhead’, and whilst we do remember, which is not as hard, as he often makes the news with his dogmatic, odious and grandiloquent views; but let’s just recall that this was not only the man that told the working class to get on your bike when he said: “I grew up in the '30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking 'til he found it.” Now Tebbit said and did many things whilst he was a loyal member of the Thatcher crew of buccaneers, robbing and plundering the lives of the generation that I suppose, I belong too.

I’ve raised Norman from the departed in this post because when he retired from his Chingford seat he was replaced and succeeded by Iain Duncan Smith, who was said to be Tebbit’s protégé, in fact Tebbit said of Smith: “"If you think I'm right-wing, you should meet this guy". Now of course for those of us in the UK Iain Duncan Smith will be best recollected as the failed and conked out, right wing leader of the Conservatives’ from some years back, a short stay (12 September 2001 to 6 November 2003) and leaving by way of losing a vote of confidence amongst his parliamentary party, something which Cameron has moved to avoid by commanding changes recently brought about to weaken the powerful 1922 committee and the part that it plays in ether electing or bringing down leaders such as Thatcher.

Anyhow, what matters is the significance that Iain Duncan Smith, has taken up office in the coalition and heading the Department for Work and Pensions, as its Secretary of State, and if we keep that in mind we can now see that the Tebbit protégé has indeed become the recipient of the ‘Chingford Skinhead’s’ bother-boots. Tebbit was both Employment Secretary (In 2001 the employment functions were split off this and transferred to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions) and Trade and Industry Secretary (now The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills with the incumbent: Vince Cable in the Chair) under Thatcher, these were two separate departments which Tebbit left his mark on, that changed probably to the detriment and degradation of us all, the way our everyday lives have paned out in and under modern capitalism.
When Iain Duncan Smith, was forced to relinquish the leadership of the Tory party; he set-about basically reinventing himself politically, being appointed chairman for the Centre for Social Justice, which has been described as a centre-right think tank that works with small charities in its aim of finding innovative policies for tackling poverty, this is obviously a joke that attempts to give this Tory and his party a cloak that covers and conceals there real contempt for working people, acting as the apologist while placing blame and onuses on the shoulders of poor people. Well whatever else one could say about Iain Duncan Smith or IDS as he likes to be known, it worked, not just winning new respect in his own party but amongst some members of the Labour Party such as the great Frank Field, who was given the role of "poverty czar" in David Cameron's coalition government, but more about him latter.

So for now, I think I’ve set the seen and the partial background to the unemployment crises that is about to unfold here in the UK. In my second part, I will take a closer look at who is doing what at Works and Pensions, what may be in store for claimants? And how do we build an effective campaign nationally, and what form should it take?

London Crime Capital of World Finance and Unemployment Dominates

All over the world there is one matter of which I’m certain, with a real definite feeling of no doubt or incertitude; and that’s millions will be worrying as they ask; what does the day after tomorrow hold; will I hold onto my job, will I get a job and will I be able to provide an adequate standard of living for myself and for my family. This is a question that must haunt like a ghost.

I was thinking a great deal about this today following the latest revealing disclosure that unemployment in the UK was heading further and ever upwardly, and of course pondering upon the fact that unemployment in London stands at a staggering 9%.

London is the worst hit area with nearly eight JSA claimants for every job vacancy.

Seven of the top ten unemployment blackspots of the UK are in this the Crime Capital of World Finance.

They are Haringey, (9,910 on the dole and 696 vacancies) Lewisham, (9,196 on the dole and 662 vacancies) Waltham Forest, (8,596 on the dole and 692 vacancies) Lambeth, (11,631 on the dole and 3,202 vacancies) Brent, (9,608 on the dole and 834 vacancies) Hammersmith and Fulham (5,154 on the dole and 514 vacancies).

But top of the bill is Hackney which is the hardest place to find a job in the whole country. In Hackney claimants outnumber vacancies by a shocking 24 to1 (9,663 on the dole and 404 vacancies).

We’re all in it together!

There’s definitely without question and beyond any doubt, something very manipulative about David Cameron, it’s not the seduction of Nick Clegg, or the skilful and showing knowledge that he has up to now employed successfully on his own backbenchers, remember that this is a Tory party with a history of turning on leaders. No it’s none of that which I’ve noticed about Cameron, but rather the public perception of the woven path that he has taken in the first month of his Premiership.

His clean-cut youthful and armour-plated good guy image, has thus far been able to fool a great many up till now into thinking, excuse me, he’s not such a bad chap after all, and the coalition government, why it’s not so bad.

He and his adherents, or rather claque and clack have skilfully used every given opportunity to featherbed the austerity road ahead. The Cumbria shootings, his recent trip, staying with our young enlisted men and woman in Afghanistan, increasing and backdating their Daly Allowance, is all part of the plan, the illusion, that he, that this government is fair, not excessive or extreme, free from favouritism or self-interest, bias or deception; conforming with established standards as a rule of thumb, is nothing more than a great deception.

They say that all new governments have a honeymoon period, and then the tide of public opinion suddenly turns. I wouldn’t venture to guess when this is likely to happen, only to anticipate its likelihood when the pressure is applied and very soon by the looks of things.

And how hollow, will those words sound, that we’re all in it together!

Well we'll soon see for sure, their first budget is bound to reveal the full extent to which the axmen will decapitate and destroy jobs and services.

The Sunday Mirror, carried a very good article by Danny Blanchflower, Professor of economics at Dartmouth and the University of Stirling, and just to give a summary, he says: Osborne is going to butcher jobs and people's livelihoods, that economic output has dropped by six per cent, twice as much as the United States. Yet America has seen a much bigger increase in unemployment than we have so far!

He thinks and I agree that Osborne is going to annihilate public spending and probably raise VAT - perhaps to as much as 25%.

And Blanchflower says: “It will do terrible and probably irreversible damage to the British economy. I am now 100 per cent certain these actions will push us into double-dip recession.”

“The chances we will enter a second great depression more than doubled on the day this government took power. Bad industrial production numbers on Friday confirmed how we are struggling to recover. And the Euro area looks like it is slowing and about to go back into recession. It is our major export market and if our friends on the Continent are not recovering it will make it even harder for us to do so.”

Blanchflower points out widespread tax evasion, by the very business fraternity who calmer and demand the cuts!

Tory-led coalition's agenda includes, scrapping free school meals to children in working but low paid poor families. Half a million of the poorest families will be denied free school meals by deep cuts in welfare spending. The decision will cost families earning less than £307 a week about £600 a year, equivalent to a penny rise in their income tax for each child. So the costs are going to fall on the poor.

The Government’s deficit reduction measures will raise unemployment close to three million and “stall” any recovery in the capitalist jobs market, and some are predicting unemployment hitting such heights with all the unsavoury social problems that degenerate life and divide communities. An employment expert said cuts in public spending made the outlook “bleak” for individuals and communities already suffering the greatest hardship.

Our government’s approach to deficit reduction and influenced by their LibDem partners in crime, is to emulate Canada’s Liberal government and its programme of cuts in the 1990s.

The resulted was the loss of 265,000 jobs from the then three million-strong Canadian public sector workforce and an eventual fall in the share of public sector employment in total employment from 26% to 19%.

On an equivalent scale, this translates into around 500,000 UK public sector job cuts!

We’re all in it together!

We say reject "Labour", Tories and the Liberals?

I find this particular post hard to compose, with such a heavy hart, a mental weight of density, the sadness that I feel is real – John MacDonnell has slung the tea towel in the ring, I’m sorry for all the decent Socialists trapped in the Labour Party, any hope of moving it back to the left is over, and before it even started.

What can I or anyone say, the Labour Party forget about it.

It really is something when a Tory PM tells the party 'opposite' they were becoming "more and more authoritarian". Jack Straw prime minister told him Labour had "given up" on civil liberties. Ed Balls was told he was the "Alf Garnet" of British politics.
And whilst this is going on and to his credit an outspoken opponent of Nu Labours filthy Welfare Reforms stands-down from the leadership contest - now the real opposition must come from outside that heap of shit that lies by the river.

While I try to clear my head here underneath is a statement that this blog agrees with from the Manchester Unemployed Workers Centre, sent out to no-to-welfare-abolition@googlegroups yesterday!

Dear No To The Abolition Of Welfare Groups.

On the question of the "Labour" Party Leadership Elections.

Our views are that the Labour Party is irrelevant now, it is a busted flush, it is in meltdown.

The leadership contenders are Oxford educated, silver spooned, privileged supporters of the monopoly capitalist system.

They have never had to suffer low wages, poverty, unemployment, discrimination, exploitation and they are all fit and healthy parasites.

We as unemployed activists say: ditch the failed "Labour" Party- Left, Right and Centre-once and for all.
"Labour" cannot be reclaimed as some deluded left groups and trade unionists say.

It is finished.

Between 1997-2010, whilst in Government it continued the previous Tory policy of featherbedding the rich whilst attacking the poor. It was a Party of imperialist wars and mass unemployment.

We say reject "Labour", Tories and the Liberals.
Reject the Westminster cartel which is a cover for the Crown dictatorship.

If you are in a union still affiliated to "Labour", campaign to withdraw.

Let’s campaign for a strong Welfare State and NHS.

Let’s campaign for Full Employment, Peace, Democracy and Socialism.

We are continuing the hard work organising unemployed people, developing the Unemployed Workers Centres and lobbying for a TUC Peoples March For Jobs next Spring.
Best Wishes,



Mervyn Drage,

The political elite threat the unemployed as persons afflicted with leprosy, a pariah who should be avoided by others!

Labour and Gordon Brown’s re-election bid was dealt a blow after it emerged that the number of long-term unemployed has nearly doubled in just two years.

Since 2008, the number of Britons unemployed for at least a year has rocketed from 390,000 to 726,000 - the highest level for 13 years, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The issue of unemployment has largely been ignored during the course of the general election campaign, and yet the curse of joblessness is a plague that has fallen on many houses with untold pain and consequences.

The political elite if anything have increasingly treated those of us who have or are experiencing a period on the dole, as persons afflicted with leprosy, a pariah who should be avoided by others!
This is borne out and carried forward in the disgusting poster, released this week by nasty Cameron and his Tories.

In just three months, an extra 89,000 people - or nearly 1,000 a day - have joined the queues in towns and cities forming up and down the land for work.
Last week during the leaders TV debate Gordon Brown said that his handling of the economy, had meant that we in Britain would not experience the same percentage of unemployment as say the USA or other nations suffering as a result of recession. Well the truth is that Gordon is talking old hat again, and you will not find one of his other opponents pull him up on this, simply because they all support the system that continues the pursuit of profit, that put’s greed before people, as it has always done.

Why do we allow this game of hangman to be played is the genuine question that I would like to ask, why do we put up with the fake and counterfeit politics of the three big players who will adorn our TV screens latter this evening?

The International Monetary Fund has warned that another 100,000 workers could lose their jobs this year and other economists fear that unemployment could rise even further to around three million next year, fuelled by job cuts in the public sector and further bloodshed in the private sector.

The capitalist system is failing like never before and at some point after the general election I predict that we will see the British working class vent their anger on the streets!

Dole queue to end!

The proclamation this week by Gordon Brown that the dole queue may be about to vanish as signing on, along with the other government agencies’ and business, goes online, woefully doesn't suggest that unemployment itself is about to vanish. But it does give tongue to a different way of picturing the condition of joblessness.

The dole queue is the most apparent visual symbol of the long-standing economic scar of unemployment. From the introduction of unemployment benefit itself 100 years ago, to the dole queues of the 30s through to the Tories’ Labour Isn’t Working advertising campaign in 1979, the image of glum-looking people standing in a line waiting to sign on is etched deep in the collective consciousness. Dole queues have fuelled working-class anger and political activism for a century. Now they seem to be doomed.

No one will mourn the end of the dole queue. Nevertheless, the dole queue has been a catalyst for all kinds of cultural and political activity since the opening of the first Labour Exchanges in February 1910. The idea of the dole itself has also gone through a number of transformations in the collective imagination, variously as a legitimate citizen’s right, a state manifestation of charity, or for the conservatively inclined, an inexhaustible treat for so-called scroungers and welfare cheats.

Unemployment is a time bomb awaiting to go off!

My fortnightly trip to the Jobcentre is always a rush job, filling in the booklet, entering the job searches that I’m supposed to have undertaken since my last visit, always done an hour or so before I sign-on, of course I don’t do the job searches, what’s the point, the few jobs that are available are mostly low paid and miles away from my home in Canning Town, travelling throughout London these days is an expensive business, and the time involved rules-out at least for me, this drudgery, and personally I'm not worried about being unemployed, I view any kind of work particularly for someone else as ‘slavery’ and a waste of my time, the income earned these days would have evaporated in costs involved even before I’d had the time to count it out!

I’m not a lazy person or am I work shy, but even on the minimum wage I would be struggling to pay my rent and the other housing costs, so what’s the point?

However when last I attended this by now customary ritual and government prescribed procedure; I had a very interesting and enlightening chat with the young man who is now my advisor and whom aerates my claim within the system. I remember the first time we met he was sitting alongside my last adviser who was training him in the procedures and ways of receiving and processing claimant's, and as I like nothing more than to have and engage in friendly banter, as I find it helps to facilitate and make easier the whole experience as well as preventing the staff member from recognising a member of the awkward squad, as that’s how I feel and not through choice, anyhow I enquired about the recent industrial action taken by members of the PCS union; had he taken part I asked, and to my delight he said he had, there then followed a general discussion about the threats posed to his and other public workers' jobs, and I told him about the attacks and the regime change that would be forcing, bullying the unemployed into demeaning dead-end low-paid employment, I was surprised that his knowledge was somewhat lacking, that he had no idea what the government was intending or what was being rolled out for those of us who are unemployed, and I suppose the same can be said about many of the unemployed, they have no idea what’s going on or how it will effect them until it happens in the very near future. During the conversation with my adviser he told me that he considered himself to be fortunate if not lucky, that he was in work, as he had spent a year out of work and on the dole. He told me that this was the best he could do for the time being; his preferred field of work the tourist/holiday business had taken a real nose dive and in more ways than one, first the impact of the recession, the tightening of the domestic belt has meant less holidays being taken abroad, and secondly wages had dropped so much that it was not worth his while working in that industry, he was not amused when I said that things were not that much better in his present occupation when you consider that some of his colleges were earning just 24 pence more than the minimum wage.

While I remember this, it’s worth recalling that travel agency Thomas Cook was branded 'despicable and heartless' for charging its employees cancellation fees in 2008 for holidays they booked through the firm but were unable to take because of being made redundant by the firm, that would give you some idea just how ruthless capitalism can adhere too, even to a loyal workforce, but loyalty has never accounted for anything

The Century of Self

The Century of the Self is a British television documentary film by Adam Curtis. It was first screened in the UK in four parts in 2002 and I’ve put a clip from YouTube underneath this as I think it holds some interesting significance worthy of consideration, there’s plenty on the net about this documentary for those of you that would like to research in more detail. However I’m reminded just how dangerous that Sigmund Freud and his decedents really are in the world, manipulating, controlling and holding capitalism in place, I have more to say about this particular family in further posts in the future, but in the meantime let’s recognise family member Lord David Freud, so who is (Lord) David Freud? Well he is one of a clutch of bankers who were brought in to use their expertise (presumably their expertise in mucking up the banking system and the rest of the economy along with it) in the service of government. They let Freud loose on welfare reform. “I didn’t know anything about welfare at all when I started.” he admitted, “but that may have been an advantage...In a funny way the solution was obvious.”
The solution, according to Freud, was twofold:

First, coerce the unemployed back to work with benefit cuts and workfare, and

Enrich the private sector while doing so.

Then with workfare and welfare reform in place David Freud quiet advising the government and is now a frontbench spokesman for the Conservatives, that’s the politics of the ruling class for you!

Welfare Reform: who will it affect?

A big thanks to Hazel Kent and the blog MULE for the following information about who’s likely to be hit hardest by the Government’s latest welfare-cutting masterplan.

The long-term unemployed

Unemployed workers will be forced to enter into Work for your Benefit schemes, which are being trialled in Manchester from October 2010. Claimants will be forced to enter up to six month long work placements – which they have not chosen – in order to claim benefits.

Low-waged workers

The position of low-waged workers, who in the current economic climate are already struggling to stay in work, will also be affected by the schemes. As benefit claimants are put in placements where they are not paid, unemployed people could basically be used as cheap labour, undermining those in paid jobs and their working conditions. It could also lead to a loss of long-term contracted jobs. In New York, where the similar Workfare scheme was introduced, 30,000 union jobs were lost within the first few years.

Jobcentre workers

The Public and Commercial Services Union have been active in fighting the Welfare Reform Bill from the outset. Included in the Bill are suggestions for Jobcentres to move towards privatisation, and follow a model used by call centres.
This change has already resulted in less face to face interaction between Jobcentre workers and jobseekers. In Manchester, the local Disability Benefit Centre was closed in November 2009. Users must now call or go to Blackpool or Preston. Jobcentre workers have complained that they will no longer provide specialist support, and there have already been many job cuts. Outreach support for carers and pensioners has been taken away, though single parent advisors still exist.

Many people working for the Department of Work and Pensions already claim Income Support and the basic wage for a clerical assistant is only 24p above minimum wage. The Government has pledged to invest £15 million into private schemes, but only £3.5 million into Jobcentre run schemes.

Single parents

Single parents with a child aged 10 or above will be expected to attend workbased interviews, with benefits cut if they do not attend. Single parents are being moved from Income Support to Jobseekers Allowance – meaning if someone turns down a job offer or is deemed not to be making enough effort to seek work, their benefits will be cut under ‘sanctions’. The move is supposedly aimed at eradicating poverty. However, it does not address root problems such as insufficient affordable childcare and inflexible working hours.

At present, single parents are often better able to cope on benefits than if they were working and having to pay childcare costs. The English Collective of Prostitutes has warned they are expecting an increase in women entering sex work with the change in legislation. The age a child should be before a parent returns to work keeps falling; first from 16 to 12 and, since October 2009, to 10. From October 2010 it will be 7. On top of this, single mothers will be forced to register both parents’ names on the birth certificate, meaning that if a woman has been coerced or abused, she must still use the father’s name on official documentation.

Alcohol and drug dependents

Those with an alcohol or drug dependency, some of the most vulnerable in society, can be forced to comply with a treatment programme. Drug and alcohol abuse is already dealt with by the penal and health systems, and many have questioned whether extra pressure from the welfare system will actually help those in need.
There is also a suggestion that Jobcentre workers may be given access to police records, or be encouraged to probe into people’s personal lives. These ideas have been heavily criticised by Liberty, the civil rights campaign group. They worry that people who are in need of benefits may not claim them for fear of having to disclose a dependent.

Incapacity Benefit claimants

Incapacity Benefit is, in effect, being removed and replaced by Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). Many concessions have been won on ESA by disabled rights campaigners but problems persist. A person’s ability to work is judged on physical capacity to perform daily tasks, but ESA does not fully take into account how this translates to a working environment.
Currently more than half of claimants claimin for ill health have mental health problems. It has been reported that the drive to get people off Incapacity Benefit and into work is making claimants more ill with stress. Conditions and sanctions can be put in place to try to force them into potentially unsuitable work. If they refuse their benefits could be cut. The system is so confusing that independent support groups have already appeared online.

At present it is still unclear who will be judging capacity to work, and it is possible that Jobcentre workers, who are untrained in mental health, will have to take on this responsibility.


This article is from one of the MULE volunteers who write and distribute 10,000 copies for free in Manchester.

Working for nothing after 13 years of New Labour

Despite high levels of unemployment due to the impact of the recession jobseekers in Greater Manchester will be the first to be forced to work up to 40 hours a week as part of the Work for Your Benefits (WfYB) pilot scheme.

The Manchester region is set to be the testing and trying out ground for a government initiative that will see unemployed people put into mandatory work placements for up to six months just to hold on to their Jobseeker’s Allowance.

Yes this has been introduced by this Labour Government to force the unemployed and others dependent on benefits to take low played employment, that’s of course if there is any, what with unemployment set to rocket and hit the moon and stars after the general election, who ever wins!

Below minimum wage

From October Jobseekers who have failed to find a job at the end of the Flexible New Deal programme will be required to undertake full time employment for between £50 and £65 a week, the equivalent of as little as £1.27 an hour. Concerns have already been raised that, with the numbers of unemployed rising, people who genuinely cannot find a job will be forced to work for next to nothing in an unsuitable role. The programme (renamed Flexible New Deal from October 2009) of active labour market policies was introduced in the United Kingdom by the Labour government in 1998, initially funded by a one off £5bn windfall tax on privatised utility companies. The stated purpose is to reduce unemployment by providing training, subsidised employment and voluntary work to the unemployed.
The New Deal introduced the ability to withdraw benefits from those who refused "reasonable employment". A complementary project was introduced in 1999, the Working Families Tax Credit. This is a tax credit scheme for low income workers which provide an incentive to work, and to continue in work, and please notice introduced by Nu Labour to subsidize Labour costs and focally help not the workers but the capitalists, the owners of the means of production, so at least during the last 13 years someone has benefited – The Boss!

Workers wages could fall by 12 per cent

So it will be Greater Manchester Job Seekers who will be first in line to suffer a mandatory 6 months of 40 hours per week work in return of their benefits. This Work for Your Benefits (WfYB) pilot scheme will begin when Flexible New Deal Phase 2 begins in parts of the country which isn’t already doing Flexible New Deal (phase 1). This means unemployed persons will be working for below the National Minimum Wage. Using the 22 year old (and over) rate of £5.80 and £51.85 per week JSA rate (lower; less than 25 – takes into account the increase in April) works out at £1.30 per hour for a 40 hour week, which is roughly 22% of the National Minimum Wage.

Some suggest that the scheme will affect the working population as well as those claiming benefits. “This flood of unwaged labour into the market will have a big effect on low waged jobs. When a similar scheme was introduced in the US there was a 12 per cent decline in pay for low-income jobs’.
Businesses will be paid for each person they get into a work placement. This has raised fears companies might ignore difficult cases or put people into unsuitable positions just to receive the commission.

Labour MP John McDonnell placed a parliamentary question in December regarding the employment rights that participants in the scheme will be entitled to. He is concerned that, since they will not be technically employed, those taking part may be put in danger as they may not be covered by health and safety legislation.

Do we live to work or do we work to live?

A wage slave is a wage slave. That is capitalisms hold over the working class, and we have all heard of Slave rebellions that have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery, and are amongst the most feared events for slaveholders.
Famous historic slave rebellions have been led by Denmark Vesey; the Roman slave Spartacus; the thrall Tunni who rebelled against the Swedish king Ongentheow, a rebellion that needed Danish assistance to be quelled; the poet-prophet Ali bin Muhammad, who led imported east African slaves in Iraq during the Zanj Rebellion against the Abbasid Caliphate in the ninth century; the Haitian Revolution, the only country founded by a slave revolt; Madison Washington during the Creole case in 19th century America; and Granny Nanny of the Maroons who rebelled against the British in Jamaica.

But never has there been any group of slaves demanding the right to be held in slavery has there? So why are we the workers of the world allowing this situation to continue, it’s time to get of our knees and fight back?

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Worst yet to come...

Image via Wikipedia

You’ve probably noticed that I often bang on about unemployment on this blog amongst other things. Well I suppose being unemployed has something to do with it, being part of that ever growing pool, an un-economic reserve army of modern day labour, scratching it about at the local Job Centre. Thinking about it, I feel a bit like a pigeon in Trafalgar Square, before Ken Livingstone declared war on Trafalgar Square’s world famous pigeons, by banning the traditional sale of corn on the Square in an attempt to starve the flock, how cruel was that!

Well let’s hope that this science is not applied to the unemployed, that is to say starving us to death by cutting benefits, having said that the government have been cutting benefits or making it harder for people in real need, to claim them, but more about that latter in the week.

First let’s for a moment just consider last week’s statistics regarding unemployment. It was reported that Britain’s unemployment rate has fallen slightly, according to labour market data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

During the fourth quarter of 2009 the unemployment rate was 7.8%, with 2.46m people out of work–some 3,000 less than in the previous quarter.

However, the employment rate also declined, by 0.1 percentage points to 72.4%. The number of people in employment fell by 12,000 to reach 28.91m, while the number in full-time employment declined by 37,000 to reach 21.22m. This was the smallest quarterly fall since the three months to July 2008.

There were 1.04m employees and self-employed people working part-time because they could not find a full-time job, the ONS says.

This is the highest figure since records for this series began in 1992, and is up 37,000 on the quarter.

The Department for Work and Pensions says the figures are broadly in line with Treasury projections.

Yvette Cooper, the secretary of state for work and pensions, says: “Unemployment is much lower than expected last year, reflecting the tough decisions families and businesses have taken to protect jobs, as well as the substantial extra investment in getting people back to work.

Who is Yvette Cooper kidding, tough decisions are being forced upon families, forced upon workers, who don’t have any real say when they are faced with the choices presented to them, such as a cut in the hours worked or even full time to part time, all with reductions in take home pay. Did the 1600 steel workers at Redcar choose to go on the dole last week, or did someone else make that decision for them.

A lot of workers are under pressure, apart from reduced working time, to take wage freezes or wage cuts of one sort or another.

Unlike the 1930s and at the moment there are no hunger marches or tent cities of the homeless and jobless in Europe’s biggest economic slump since the Great Depression. Welfare states built after World War Two, and labour market regulation in many West European countries thus far have cushioned workers and their families from the full force of the collapse of banks, the credit squeeze and a deep recession.

But for how much longer?

Short-time has become a system that enables firms to retain experienced staff while reducing their wage bills, demonstrating that working people are paying for the crisis of capitalism.

The impact of economic stimulus programmes and the return of at least some timid growth have not clicked in as expected, saving they say many households from poverty and averting a potential double-dip recession due to depressed demand. In fact the talk in the UK has been of a double-dip recession, and I fear the worst is yet to come!

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Happy Brithday Dole Office

There prevails an anniversary that has almost gone a miss, and I would have missed its composed and calm passing if it had not been for a friend mentioning the fact that the dole office is 100 years old today. They did not say anything to me on Friday when I was in Canning Town JobCentre Plus for my own fortnightly visit; it’s not everyday you turn into a centenarian, and I may have considered sending a birthday card, but then again £54.60 a week doesn’t go that far these days, and I am waiting for the winter heating bills to hit the doormat with trepidation!

Well I just wanted to bring this anniversary to the attention of those who read this blog, because I am sure that at some time or other you may have experienced the reality of unemployment the difficulties in making ends meet between jobs, the austerity of a life waiting for a break before treading that mill once again. I recommend read this from the Times here and  from the BBC here.

Discarded Christmas tree!

This very morning as I write this post Canning Town were I live is covered in that white stuff known as snow. It’s not often that we’ve see snow in London in the recent years; but this morning we have a winters covering and just before the mad run up to Christmas, of course this has nothing to do with what I’m going to write about of which I’ve not even certain or have an idea, I think, I’ll have a little think out aloud, as to how I see things politically in the closing of the year and ending of the first decade of this century.
So here we are at the closing of this decade, on a winter’s morning and I’m imagining that there will be many thousands of families and single individuals who will find paying just to keep warm comes with great difficulty!
Having taken a short break from the composition of this post, as I had to attend Canning Town JobCentre to claim the pittance that keeps me in the lifestyle that I’ve become accustomed too, I return to take-up my deliberations. My employment adviser, a very nice chap, I think, asked what I would be doing over the festive holidays to which I replied working on this and the other blog ‘In the Box’, he, my adviser, asked out of interest where he would be able to find my blog, so I gave him my (URL) uniform resource locator address on the world wide web, and if by any chance he reads this, as he said he would then may I extended my warmest of greetings to him and his family over this Christmas period.

Well one thing is for sure and that’s next year the country goes to the polls to elect a new government, we can, in the new-year expect the three mainstream parties to start in earnest the phony war, many will become tired of this political urinalysis before that great day and will simply switch off, and who can blame them, if they haven’t heard it all before or maybe we have all become a we bit disillusioned and mistrustful of this élite.

There is not one of these parties that offer any way out of the situation that we are in, they all propose to do the same, in short, hold up and support the capitalist system that is responsible for the world crises or recession.

Twelve months ago, the panic sown by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers had pushed financial markets close to collapse. Global economic activity, from industrial production to foreign trade, was falling faster than in the early 1930s. This time, though, the decline was stemmed within months. Teetering, seesawing banks were rolled in a multi-trillion-dollar wrap of government cash and guarantees. Central banks slashed interest rates; the big ones dramatically expanded their balance-sheets. Governments worldwide embraced fiscal stimulus with zestfulness. This extraordinary activism helped to stem panic, prop up the financial system and counter the collapse in private demand. It also demonstrated the real role and character of government in our so-called democracies – to hold that system up, come what may, by force of circumstances and whatever the costs are in terms of jobs or even the homes of ordinary working people. So whilst banks receive transfusions of cash, communities are abandoned or simply left to stagnate. One interesting example has to be the beleaguered US city of Detroit reported to be in danger of running out of money. The city's accumulated budget deficit is said to be greater than $300 million. Now it is threatened with being placed under the financial management of a person appointed by the governor. And just to give a taster of how bad things are today, according to a new study in the Detroit News, it claims that the city’s unemployment is actually closer to 50 percent than the government’s official 30 percent. A new survey commissioned by the paper said that a full 100,000 people had become so discouraged that they simply gave up looking for work.

The situation in the world is still fragile, because global demand is still dependent on government support and such openhandedness has papered over old problems while creating new sources of unpredictability.
This time last year in Britain 20,000 workers, painfully worked their last Christmas at the stores of that famous icon on the high street Woolworths, flung and cast aside like a discarded tree after Christmas, was the reward given for the many years loyal service of its workforce. This year that trend continues as around 1,100 staff at bookshop chain Borders will lose their jobs next week, administrators said today that after they failed to find a buyer for the struggling business its 45 stores across Britain, will close on Tuesday, with staff finishing work two days later on Christmas Eve.

The Cost of Christmas

It is said by some that Christmas has come early this year; well I always think that it’s upon us all too soon as it is. But what’s being referred to are the reports in the media claiming huge discounts in the shops and stores on the high street.

One retail suppliers’ has said that this is definitely to be a Christmas of discounted goods, adding: In this environment, you’d be mad to pay full price for anything. So as the Christmas message of shop while you can spread’s and the Queen practices for her traditional broadcast to her beleaguered and circumvented subjects, Debenhams and what we in Scunthorpe used to call Marks & Sparks have kick started sales early by slashing their prices. It seems that retailers have been forced to take this drastic action and cut their prices as a result of the ongoing financial crisis which has left many struggling to find the money to spend on Christmas.

Christmas Discounts have been applied by many shops in an effort to try and boost spending and stop profits from slumping further. One thing is for sure and that’s it serves as a reminder of how server this recession is.

A recent report has indicated that there is now a higher number of people that are facing bankruptcy in the UK, with a rise of 7 percent in the third quarter of the year compared to the same period last year. The figures come from the Ministry of Justice, and show that 13,653 people had petitioned for bankruptcy in the three months to the end of September.

This number is the second highest since the Ministry of Justice started taking records in 1995. The quarter also saw the number of creditor petitions increase, as well as the number of company winding up petitions, which rose by around 13 percent.

One economist described the figures as ‘a clear taste of things to come’ and he also added: “Individual bankruptcies are poised to surge over the coming months in the face of recession, faster rising unemployment, higher debt levels, very tight credit conditions and more and more people being trapped in negative equity.”

Further increases in bankruptcy levels have been predicted by many industry officials, and it is through that this is because of the ongoing global financial crisis and the expected rise in unemployment figures as the country continues to go through the capitalist recession!