The greatest threat to democracy may no longer come from political parties but from unelected tech oligarchs like Peter Thiel and his powerful Silicon Valley network, argues JOHN GREEN
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The Tory war on the sick, disabled and chronically ill
Rishi Sunak’s ‘clampdown on sick-note culture’ reflects the sickness of the ‘elites’ and the capitalist system they run, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE MP
WHY AREN’T YOU AT WORK: Rishi Sunak prowls the wards of North Devon District Hospital, September 2023
Today’s interconnected conflicts are enriching the arms industry while pushing the entire world towards permanent militarisation, argues ROGER McKENZIE
by Nana Backland, Merseyside Morning Star Readers & Supporters Group
The government’s Pip review looks like a carefully managed exercise in legitimising future cuts to disability support, argues Dr DYLAN MURPHY
The Tories introduced the 50% strike ballot threshold to make industrial action harder. MATT WRACK argues that a Labour government has no justification for leaving it on the statute book
IT’S a shocking fact, not known nearly widely enough, that around half of disabled people claiming Employment and Support Allowance have attempted suicide at some point in their lives, and too many because of the government’s onerous work capability assessment (WCA) scheme.
The figure was 43 per cent seven years ago, according to NHS Digital’s Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, and, while no more up-to-date figures have since been published, the numbers will only have gone in the wrong direction as the government has pushed harder and harder to force claimants of out-of-work disability benefits into work.
What is known, however, according to information presented to the Commons work and pensions select committee in 2022, is that over just a three-year period before then, the WCA had been linked to 600 suicides.
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The government’s Pip review looks like a carefully managed exercise in legitimising future cuts to disability support, argues Dr DYLAN MURPHY
DYLAN MURPHY reports that far from helping people back into work, the sanctions regime is inflicting unnecessary trauma on working-class families
Labour will find increases in the state pension age are unacceptable, just as cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance, personal independence payments and universal credit are — it needs to change direction immediately, writes PCS general secretary FRAN HEATHCOTE
In the current climate, it is vital to bust the myths and put forward the case for a humane and decent social security system that supports people, argues FRAN HEATHCOTE