Death Rates - Highest for a decade
Britain’s death rates for January to July 2015 were 30,000 up on similar figures for 2014 – the highest for a decade.
News/Views
Courts - Direct action escalates
The direct action reported in Workers in July by criminal lawyers (outside of all the anti-trade union legislation in Britain), which is intended to clog up the criminal legal system in Britain, has now been escalated.
NHS contract challenged
The NHS is facing a legal challenge from private provider Care UK, after four GP-led clinical commissioning groups awarded an elective care contract instead to a local NHS Trust in East London.
Still fighting over the Co-op Bank
The “Save our Bank” campaign – the cooperative and mutualists who have seen the demise of the Co-op Bank and control passing to private equity and hedge fund – is still trying to fight back against the new owners.
Not a real change
25 August 2015
This book by Christian Felber, an economist and university lecturer in Austria, outlines an “alternative” to the economic chaos and social suffering caused by financial capital. Some of his ideas are utopian; but there’s also stimulating thought about how to mitigate capitalism’s callousness.
Get real! Doctors will need to turn 7-day anger into action
16 August 2015
Last month health secretary Jeremy Hunt told doctors to “get real” over the need for “proper seven-day service” in the NHS. Whether those two small words were a deliberate attempt to antagonise, there is no question about the mood of doctors.
1945: America drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
28 July 2015
Seventy years ago, in August 1945, America exploded atomic bombs over two Japanese cities. Controversy still rages as to why they were used and whether these weapons should have been authorised. The USA remains the only state to have deployed nuclear weapons in warfare.
Britain's role in the Saudi attack on Yemen
27 July 2015
Since late March, a coalition led by Saudi Arabia, including Qatar, the UAE and Egypt, and backed by the Obama and Cameron governments, has been attacking Yemen.
RAF pilots join US-inspired bombing in Syria
27 July 2015
RAF pilots have taken part in NATO bombing missions in Syria. This is in breach of the August 2013 Parliamentary vote against any British military involvement in Syria – but in support of US strategy.
No good comes from the rich
26 July 2015
All parliamentary parties hold the view that very rich people are good for the economy. By implication workers can only hope to have crumbs from the table. That’s never been a convincing argument – and this book from Andrew Sayer shows how the opposite is true.
Financial Times sold to Japanese company
26 July 2015
Publishing group Pearson is selling the Financial Times Group to Japanese firm Nikkei for £844 million – sending another famous British firm into foreign ownership.
Plans to tighten the euro noose
20 July 2015
Even as negotiations with Greece were continuing in June, the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, released a report calling for closer monetary and political union.