General secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions GAWAIN LITTLE calls for support and participation in the national partnership organised to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1926 general strike
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Market methods have failed the NHS – we need investment, in-sourcing and stability of services
HELEN O'CONNOR says the Autumn Statement risks confirming a disastrous strategy that has bled the health service white
hospital bed
After brutal police crackdowns on pensioners and the forced approval of secret IMF deals, trade unions are finally responding to grassroots pressure and fighting back against savage neoliberal reforms, reports BERT SCHOUWENBURG
Bizarrely, Trump’s latest attacks now include the National Zoo, but his real and racist agenda is to strip everything black from the country’s cultural institutions, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
The transformation of a stable secular state into a fractured ruin largely ruled by Western-backed fundamentalists exposes the hollow nature of ‘multipolarity’ and the absence of principled anti-imperialism today, writes ZOLTAN ZIGEDY
Facing economic turmoil, Jim Callaghan’s government rejected Tony Benn’s alternative economic strategy in favour of cuts that paved the way for Thatcherism — and the cuts-loving Labour of the present era, writes KEITH FLETT
The economic value of disability benefits far outweighs their cost, argues Dr DYLAN MURPHY
As tensions rise in the Middle East, the role of Iran in the region’s political balance becomes ever more significant. STEVE BISHOP assesses the current situation
THE NHS spend in 2021-22 was £152 billion but in spite of this, NHS trusts have suffered budgetary shortfalls of approximately £2bn each year since 2015. The relentless demand for efficiency savings and non-stop restructuring has led to ward closures, bed counts dropping, and services being privatised.
Over the last 10 years the NHS has lost 25,000 beds on the pretext of “care being moved into the community” but what has happened is that the public are waiting longer than ever before for care and treatment on the NHS. Eye-watering sums of public money are flowing into the private sector with minimum scrutiny, contract compliance or accountability.
Even before the pandemic struck, the “modernisation of the NHS” driven by a ruthless programme of cuts and privatisation had led to a rise in waiting lists for elective care.
More from this author
Marxists’ and leftwingers’ opposition to prostitution is not a moral question — it’s a class issue and a human rights issue, argues HELEN O’CONNOR
From sexual harassment to the denial of flexible working patterns, women’s issues are sidelined and their voices silenced in our movement – and they are voting with their feet, writes HELEN O’CONNOR
Divorcing doctors, as the first line of our universal healthcare system, from the NHS by turning them into salaried employees is an obvious move towards further privatisation, writes HELEN O’CONNOR
Rather than ending the current strike wave and endorsing Blairite neoliberalism instead, calling for a general election now and a getting a Labour government in would put the workers’ movement in a better position to leverage our power, argues HELEN O’CONNOR
