Latest editorial
An armoured personnel carrier, on the training range at Bovington Camp, a British Army military base in Dorset, February 22, 2023.
RISHI SUNAK claimed he was committed to levelling-up after it emerged the poorest areas of Britain may be deprived of high street and community safety funding to launch the Tories’ national service.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) warned today that areas with high deprivation have the most to lose under government plans to close its flagship UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) and use £1.5 billion to support military and volunteering opportunities for 18-year-olds.
This could result in wealthier areas across southern England receiving “a substantial increase in net funding” as the UKSPF is worth up to 45 times less per person in areas such as Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales, Cornwall and the Tees Valley, the think tank said.
by Nana Backland, Merseyside Morning Star Readers & Supporters Group
Years of underfunding are eroding Scotland’s local services and deepening inequality in communities, says VINCE MILLS
Cuts are sweeping campuses as cash-strapped universities slash staff and politicians fail to act on a growing funding emergency. VINCE MILLS reports
In the second part of her critique of Wes Streeting’s TenYear Plan for Health, HELEN MERCER looks at the central planks of this privatisation blueprint