Mask-off outbursts by Maga insiders and most strikingly, the destruction and reconstruction of the presidential seat, with a huge new $300m ballroom, means Trump isn’t planning to leave the White House when his term ends, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
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
BEN CHACKO speaks with Knesset member OFER CASSIF about rising political violence, the prospects for peace and his continuous ‘silencing by suspension’
The City is leaning on Rachel Reeves to cut welfare spending — when what’s needed is cuts to all the benefits given to the mega rich, corporations and banks to help them not pay or blatantly dodge their fair share of tax, explains BERNIE EVANS
The choice between two Blairites to revamp the tepid centrism of our ruling party doesn’t even come as cold comfort as we wander the city streets suffering from their third decade of austerity and the fifth of wage stagnation, writes MATT KERR
ANN HENDERSON looks at the trailblazers of the Women’s Trade Union League and their successful fight for female factory inspectors — a battle that echoes in today’s workplace campaigns
HENRY FOWLER puts the strike of public-sector workers in New Zealand in the wider context of deteriorating employment conditions throughout the world’s major economies
MAT COWARD looks back at a protest 105 years ago this month, whose reporting by the media bears uncomfortable similarities with demos today
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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