While international attention focuses on ceasefire frameworks, Israel is openly advancing plans for a permanent expansion of its control over Gaza, writes RAMZY BAROUD
Latest editorial
State pensions: a diminishing ‘benefit’ under the Tories
What was once common sense to both major parties – that we all pay a little of our wages to receive a pension when we are too old to work – has been viciously undermined by decades of neoliberalism, explains NICK WRIGHT
A pile of one pound coins
Researchers PAUL HOLDEN and JESSICA MURRAY are calling for whistleblowers and documentary records to uncover how Labour Together helped build the parliamentary majority that now dominates the Labour Party
Cuba continues to embody a vision of internationalism that imperialism has never forgiven, argues ZOLTAN ZIGEDY
PCS general secretary FRAN HEATHCOTE explains why opposing war is inseparable from defending jobs, wages and public services – and why readers should come to the London Peace Conference on Saturday June 20
As protests erupt over Henry Nowak’s murder, ANDREW MURRAY argues that anger is being exploited to advance a wider racist and anti-immigration agenda
CARLOS MARTINEZ explains the sound case for car manufacturing co-operation with China
TWO days ago my state pension went up in lockstep with the inflation figures for last year.
Useful, if not really keeping pace with the basket of price rises that devalues the average pension, but, raised in line with the Tories’ electorally effective “triple lock,” it is an effective marker of the ways in which the weekly income of working people and pensioners loses its value.
But it is not a bloody “benefit” — at least in the reworked meaning of that word. I paid for it with National Insurance deductions from my wages over decades. The proof is brought home with the carefully annotated reminder that my state pension is a bit higher than otherwise might be the case when I paid Barbara Castle’s enhanced State Earnings-Related Pension (Serps) contribution.
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