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Austerity
Diane Abbott
Features / 5 April 2025
5 April 2025
DIANE ABBOTT MP points out the false premises used by Rachel Reeves in the Spring Statement
A retiree rallies calling for higher pensions and against au
Features / 1 April 2025
1 April 2025
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
Protesters show placards as Britain's Chancellor Rachel Reev
Features / 29 March 2025
29 March 2025
While slashing welfare and public services, Labour’s spring statement delivers a bonanza for death-dealing bomb merchants. We now see the true and terrible face of austerity 2.0, writes MICHAEL BURKE
Protesters on Whitehall in London, as Chancellor of the Exch
Britain / 28 March 2025
28 March 2025
Government must take action, union warns: ‘We can’t go on with billionaires getting ever richer whilst working people suffer’
Protesters march towards Parliament Square, London, as Chanc
Editorial: / 26 March 2025
26 March 2025
Protesters demonstrate as Chancellor Rachel Reeves is about
Britain / 26 March 2025
26 March 2025
Labour accused of ‘balancing the books off the backs of the poor’ in spring spending statement
Protest 25.3.25
Britain / 25 March 2025
25 March 2025
Chancellor Reeves' planned public spending cuts will ‘open the door’ for Reform UK, McDonnell warns as campaigners get set to rally outside the Treasury
A far-right protest in Belfast city centre an anti-racism â€
Britain / 24 March 2025
24 March 2025
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during a reception to celebr
Editorial: / 20 March 2025
20 March 2025
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall arrives in Downing S
Britain / 17 March 2025
17 March 2025
Disabled people and MPs mobilising against government's ‘appalling’ welfare cuts
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Ra
Britain / 12 March 2025
12 March 2025
Tax rich instead of cutting benefits, PM told
Keir Starmer, front center, hosts the European leaders' summ
Features / 8 March 2025
8 March 2025
As European leaders compete to increase military spending while threatening welfare cuts, the burden will fall disproportionately on working people and minority communities, warns DIANE ABBOTT MP
Members of Unite, Unison, GMB, and the EIS trade unions stag
Voices of Scotland / 25 February 2025
25 February 2025
As we face savage cuts to our pay and conditions while the executive gravy train chugs on, Unite is putting the Scottish government on notice as workers prepare for a massive wave of resistance, writes DEREK THOMSON
Rachel Reeves
Features / 22 February 2025
22 February 2025
In his first of a new monthly economics column MICHAEL BURKE argues that public-sector investment is more effective, more productive than private-sector investment
A firefighter runs through a practice drill during a London
Editorial: / 10 February 2025
10 February 2025
Britain / 14 November 2024
14 November 2024
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson arrives in Downing St
Britain / 4 November 2024
4 November 2024
RR+M
Features / 2 November 2024
2 November 2024
Comparing Budget measures to fictional Tory plans rather than actual spending levels conceals continued austerity, argues DIANE ABBOTT MP, as workers face stealth tax increases to bear the cost of economic stagnation
Rachel Reeves Changes Begins
Features / 29 October 2024
29 October 2024
Everything we’ve seen so far from Starmer and Reeves indicates that they remain committed to the economic orthodoxy of cuts imposed by the Tories – which is why we need to revitalise the anti-austerity movement, says BEN SELLERS of the People’s Assembly
The temperature control of a radiator in a home
Features / 5 October 2024
5 October 2024
National Pensioners Convention general secretary JAN SHORTT says Rachel Reeves must drop her dangerous attack on Britain's pensioners
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves speaks during the
Features / 5 October 2024
5 October 2024
In light of its retreat on green investment, DIANE ABBOTT MP dissects Labour’s economic priorities, questioning whether the promised ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ will materialise amid signs of continued cuts and massive spending on war
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves takes applause af
Features / 3 October 2024
3 October 2024
Labour’s refusal to challenge banking profits or tax the rich exposes its painfully hollow rhetoric of ‘tough choices,’ while the trousering of freebies and schmoozing the gambling industry undermines its basic integrity, argues BERNIE EVANS
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson
Labour Conference 2024 / 25 September 2024
25 September 2024
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, Prime Minister Si
Labour Conference 2024 / 23 September 2024
23 September 2024
RICHARD BURGON MP, who voted against the cut to winter fuel allowance, warns against a return to austerity, introducing his ideas that could raise billions to properly fund public services and boost wages instead
Unite union general secretary Sharon Graham, 21/12/2022
Labour Conference 2024 / 23 September 2024
23 September 2024
‘The fiscal rules are a noose around our neck,’ Unite's SHARON GRAHAM tells the Morning Star – it's time to tax the rich
Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chancellor of the Exchequer
Editorial: / 22 September 2024
22 September 2024
A People's Assembly rally outside the ACC Arena, Liverpool,
Labour Conference 2024 / 22 September 2024
22 September 2024
Delegates to vote on government’s cruel cut to winter fuel allowance for 10 million pensioners
The temperature control of a radiator in a home
Britain / 17 September 2024
17 September 2024
More than 1.7 million households plan on keeping their heating off this year, survey reveals
A demonstrator holds a banner that reads in Spanish ‘The 2
World / 16 September 2024
16 September 2024
Rachel Reeves
Editorial: / 10 September 2024
10 September 2024
An elderly woman holding pound coins in her hands
TUC 2024 / 8 September 2024
8 September 2024
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at the National Crime Agency
Britain / 8 September 2024
8 September 2024
9 - Rachel Reeves
Features / 5 September 2024
5 September 2024
The Chancellor is rehashing discredited Victorian economics, showing the party has learned nothing from a century of failed Gladstonian economics, ignoring Keynes and betraying workers, writes KEITH FLETT
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves during her visit t
Britain / 28 August 2024
28 August 2024
Age UK warns that two million pensioners could be in serious trouble this winter
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during his speech and press
Britain / 27 August 2024
27 August 2024
Left MPs and trade unionists accuse Sir Keir of choosing austerity, pain and poverty instead of taxing the super-rich
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during a meeting with the Cr
Editorial: / 27 August 2024
27 August 2024
Rachel Reeves
Editorial: / 22 August 2024
22 August 2024
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves during a press con
Britain / 21 August 2024
21 August 2024
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham calls for wealth tax
Chancellor Rachel Reeves giving a speech at the Treasury in
Britain / 29 July 2024
29 July 2024
Campaigners accuse Chancellor Rachael Reeves of prolonging the era of austerity after heralding in a new raft of cuts
Children enjoying playing on swings in a park near Ashford,
Britain / 22 July 2024
22 July 2024
Unacceptable for one of world’s wealthiest nations to fuel child poverty, campaigners charge
Anti-auserity march
Features / 14 July 2024
14 July 2024
JOHN McINALLY calls for militant trade unionism and overt socialist politics to counter the new government’s pro-capitalist agenda and a looming authoritarian turn that threatens to muzzle working-class resistance
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar speaking during the party
Features / 28 June 2024
28 June 2024
With local authorities and services in a dire state, what should be the strategy of the left? DREW GILCHRIST argues that building support for no-cuts budgets can be a powerful way of defending our communities
Prime Minister David Cameron (right) and Deputy Prime Minist
Features / 22 June 2024
22 June 2024
The last 14 years have completely disproven the economic myths the Tories used to set us on the path of cuts and devastation – we need massive direct investment to rebuild the post-industrial communities, writes JON TRICKETT
Solicitor Aamer Anwar with members of the Scottish Covid Ber
Britain / 18 January 2024
18 January 2024
Spinal injury
Features / 28 November 2023
28 November 2023
Patients and professional bodies are united in calling for action to support those with spinal injuries who are facing unique challenges over heating bills, reports RUTH HUNT
Pound coins
Features / 21 November 2023
21 November 2023
We know the Conservatives stand for cuts, destitution, and hungry children – it’s time for Labour to announce the policies that will do the opposite, writes KIM JOHNSON MP
/04/2023 of NHS junior doctors taking part in a march and ra
Labour Party Conference 2023 / 9 October 2023
9 October 2023
Britain is crying out for change and investment in our crumbling infrastructure – will Labour have the courage to commit to the investment so desperately needed, asks JON TRICKETT MP
Austerity
Features / 6 October 2023
6 October 2023
ADAM JOHANNES, a People’s Assembly Wales activist, poses some difficult questions about the reactions to budget cuts in Wales
Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt speaks to the media
Britain / 3 October 2023
3 October 2023
Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt condemned after announcing harsher welfare sanctions in an ugly resurgence of its austerity-era ‘shirker’ rhetoric
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (centre) and Health and Social Ca
Editorial: / 13 September 2023
13 September 2023
raffiti on the side of a building in Port Talbot, South Wale
Features / 8 September 2023
8 September 2023
Gloomy prognoses concerning Wales’s challenges can be confronted if we move away from our fixation with the GDP, and look at the lives of normal people, writes LUKE FLETCHER MS
Boris Johnson
Editorial: / 25 August 2023
25 August 2023
Then Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne and then Pr
Britain / 19 June 2023
19 June 2023
‘Their policies weakened the foundations of our society by hollowing out our public services and shredding our safety net,’ TUC says
Riot polices take their positions next of flames of cocktail
Editorial: / 17 March 2023
17 March 2023
People take part in the People's Assembly Britain is Broken
Features / 13 January 2023
13 January 2023
ANDY BAIN previews today’s conference taking place at Friends House in London
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer
Editorial: / 6 January 2023
6 January 2023
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer speaks during a visit to UCL
Britain / 5 January 2023
5 January 2023
‘We now need a government that is committed to making different choices,’ Unite leader Sharon Graham says following Starmer's speech
Members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) on the picket
Editorial: / 4 January 2023
4 January 2023
Lynda Yu
Features / 27 December 2022
27 December 2022
The government is ignoring key advice on further deterioration in social care provision, writes RUTH HUNT
The Tories have declared war on society: it is high time soc
Features / 22 December 2022
22 December 2022
It has been over a decade since 'austerity measures' were unleashed on our nation, and four years since the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty condemned the inevitable results — but where is our justified rage, asks JOHN WIGHT
School children during a Year 5 class at a primary school
Britain / 12 December 2022
12 December 2022
Tories' funding attacks hit kids and college students the most
People take part in the People's Assembly Britain is Broken
Features / 2 December 2022
2 December 2022
Reports from Crisis, the Trussell Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation show that the inhumane Tories are leading us deeper into a social emergency, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE
An objector to assisted suicide holds up placards outside th
Features / 30 November 2022
30 November 2022
The right to ‘die with dignity’ is warped by austerity and social exclusion, argues JOHN CLARKE
Diane Abbott
Features / 25 November 2022
25 November 2022
You face austerity because banks are being feather-bedded, not because the state is 'running out of money.' It doesn’t have to be this way, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP
Strikers
Features / 22 November 2022
22 November 2022
As living standards tumble, we mustn’t be fooled into thinking this is the natural order of things. By getting together we can fight back, writes BEN SELLERS
demo
Features / 18 November 2022
18 November 2022
RICHARD BURGON MP argues the labour movement must put wealth taxes at the heart of its alternative to Tory cuts
People in Newcastle take part in the People's Assembly natio
Features / 19 August 2022
19 August 2022
We must build a united front industrially and politically, with clear, relevant demands and a co-ordinated campaign to deliver them or the Tories will crush us, argues HELEN O’CONNOR
Members of the RMT picket at the entrance to Waverley Statio
Features / 24 June 2022
24 June 2022
So much more is at stake in the rail workers’ dispute than the livelihoods of the RMT's 80,000 members — we may well be witnessing the struggle that will end not only this government, but the austerity era itself, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP
Boris Johnson
Features / 8 June 2022
8 June 2022
The Conservative government has claimed that ‘levelling up’ is central to their agenda, but even a cursory look at their policies shows they are clearly responsible for instead creating record levels of inequality, writes JON TRICKETT MP
Worrisome parallels to the economic depression in the 1930s
Features / 19 May 2022
19 May 2022
The cost of living is 'now the most important concern' for 76 per cent of people in the north-east, but even now the government is not changing its course of cuts and poverty — we must fight back, argues KATE OSBORNE MP
John McGowan
Interview: / 15 March 2022
15 March 2022
On World Social Work Day, Steve Sweeney talks to JOHN McGOWAN, general secretary of the Social Workers Union, about the challenges facing the sector caused by increasing poverty and why specialised unions have a lot to offer
Welsh Senedd
Features / 14 March 2022
14 March 2022
In the run-up to Plaid Cymru conference, Senedd member RHYS AB OWEN argues that the pandemic has been a chance to radically imagine what a future society should be – but we’re already seeing backsliding from the powers that be who have no desire to reorganise society to benefit ordinary people  
esisting the new cost-of-living crisis will mean supporting
Features / 11 March 2022
11 March 2022
The government is not even pretending to have an answer to the dire situation most of us face. Workers can’t wait for it to tackle the deepening cost-of-living crisis – we have to take action ourselves, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE
NHS nurses
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2022 / 8 March 2022
8 March 2022
Women have just as big a role to play in the trade unions and in political life as men – every aspect of our day-to-day lives is affected by workplace policies and by the decisions of the politicians in Westminster, argues HELEN O’CONNOR
ssp
Features / 25 February 2022
25 February 2022
Don’t let Boris Johnson off the hook over sick pay, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE
A Universal Credit sign on a door of a job centre plus in ea
Britain / 27 January 2022
27 January 2022
Campaigners warn the Tories' ‘grim’ new policy could force people into jobs they cannot do
Self-isolation paraphernalia
Features / 7 January 2022
7 January 2022
The Tories are using the pandemic as cover to push though their austerity agenda, which falls hardest on workers, the poor and the oppressed, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak leaving 11 Downing S
Features / 29 October 2021
29 October 2021
As Sunak signals his allegiance to the heartless business elite he hopes will soon back his bid for the top seat, this was a good Budget for polluters, arms manufacturers and bankers — but terrible for ordinary people, writes DIANE ABBOTT
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak
Editorial: / 24 October 2021
24 October 2021
Keir Starmer
Features / 1 October 2021
1 October 2021
Regardless of what politicians say does or does not come up ‘on the doorstep,’ our movement needs to engage in real, practical and mass agitation that’s rooted in working people’s lives, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
Keir Starmer wind farm
Features / 29 September 2021
29 September 2021
People are facing a triple whammy of rising energy costs, a national insurance hike and a cut to universal credit — but with Starmer’s failure to step up, it’s now up to the unions to fight back, writes STEVEN WALKER
People's Assembly
Features / 9 September 2021
9 September 2021
Fighting separately has allowed the Tories to divide and isolate us – we need to build up union strength and co-ordinate effectively, warns FRAN HEATHCOTE of PCS
Then mayor Boris  Johnson confronted by local  residents in
Features / 9 August 2021
9 August 2021
Socialist historian and local KEITH FLETT looks at what has changed and what has not for the famous working-class area in North London, from racism to gentrification
Steve Baker (centre) with fellow Tory MPs Stephen Crabb (lef
Britain / 2 August 2021
2 August 2021
MP who voted for social security cuts and against free school meals complains of ‘intolerable hunger’ in the home counties
NHS logo
Features / 30 July 2021
30 July 2021
There has been a 30 per cent increase in claims against our health service in the past decade, costing our health service £2.4bn in 2019 alone, writes STEVEN WALKER
Hungry kids 2/4/18
Britain / 15 July 2021
15 July 2021
Scottish Greens called on Holyrood to protect families from two-child limit and calls on Westminster to ‘end these cruel policies now’
People's Assembly
Features / 26 June 2021
26 June 2021
The strength of our movement is to be found in all of the thousands of struggles, big and small, which are taking place up and down this country, says YCL leader JOHNNIE HUNTER
a dentist at work
Features / 26 June 2021
26 June 2021
People's Assembly Against Austerity stage a
Features / 26 June 2021
26 June 2021
We must send a strong message that as we emerge from Covid, there must be no going back to business as usual, says STEVE TURNER of Unite
George Osborne arrives at a party at the home of Mick Jagger
Britain / 24 June 2021
24 June 2021
As chancellor, he ‘was the architect of devastating cuts to the arts and to culture,’ Labour's Angela Rayner says. ‘He is in no way an appropriate choice’
People's Assembly march
Features / 23 June 2021
23 June 2021
RICHARD BURGON MP argues that the government will only deliver the change we need if we build the movements that demand it
A pensioner walks past a sign that reads
Britain / 23 June 2021
23 June 2021
Independent Age finds almost a fifth of pensioners are now living in poverty, a 5 per cent since 2012
Britain / 15 June 2021
15 June 2021
foodbank
Features / 8 June 2021
8 June 2021
Academics HARTWIG PAUTZ and DAMIAN DEMPSEY reveal their findings on rising food insecurity faced by the most vulnerable in society
alitalia
Features / 1 May 2021
1 May 2021
LUCA VISENTINI believes recent legal gains by trade unions in various EU countries point to the potential for collective struggle that must not go to waste
Covid wheel chair
Features / 16 April 2021
16 April 2021
Disabled people have been hit especially hard by this pandemic, yet the government is refusing to increase benefits, writes RICHARD BURGON MP
adults studying
Features / 14 April 2021
14 April 2021
DOUG NICHOLLS argues that the current cuts to adult residential learning represent the coup de grace for lifelong education opportunities
Food laid out in crates at a food bank in north London
Britain / 25 March 2021
25 March 2021
New data shows 14.5 million people were living in ‘relative poverty’ prior to the first lockdown. Campaigners warn Covid-19 will have made matters much worse
NHS workers from hospitals across the capital during a socia
Features / 3 March 2021
3 March 2021
The government’s shoddy treatment of heroic health workers is disgraceful – and trade unionists will be fighting hard to ensure their vital work is fairly rewarded, says HELEN O’CONNOR
A hospital cleaner Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital i
Britain / 11 January 2021
11 January 2021
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps
Exclusive: / 23 December 2020
23 December 2020
In the austerity era, MPs claim £100s for festive journeys
Unicef
Britain / 16 December 2020
16 December 2020
Labour MPs say situation is a ‘disgrace’ for one of the world's richest countries
Britain / 6 December 2020
6 December 2020
UBI Lab Network logo
Features / 6 December 2020
6 December 2020
ALEX CULVIN, member of UBI Lab Network, tells Georgina Trace how a Universal Basic Income in the UK could emancipate women and provide financial security during the coronavirus pandemic
NHS workers outside Downing Street in August protest against
Exclusive: / 30 October 2020
30 October 2020
Government urged to continue to fund hotel beds for frontline staff
Britain / 14 October 2020
14 October 2020
Charities and unions demand urgent government action
Boris Johnson in laboratory
Features / 3 October 2020
3 October 2020
Without a zero-Covid approach, the outlook is for a rising death toll, further economic damage and terrible knock-on effects on public health and education, argues DIANE ABBOTT MP
Boris Johnson school
Features / 23 September 2020
23 September 2020
With Covid-19 cases rising in schools and the testing system buckling, educators are under increasing strain. Now is time for a fair reward for teachers writes ROBERT POOLE
Tory Austerity
Features / 17 August 2020
17 August 2020
ELLEN CLIFFORD introduces the new ‘user-led’ approach of the Experts by Experience Commission on Social Security fighting to give claimants a say in the benefits system
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor of the Exchequer
Britain / 12 August 2020
12 August 2020
Britain falls into the worst recession since 1950s while holding record for most coronavirus related deaths in Europe
Job Centre Plus
Britain / 29 June 2020
29 June 2020
Removing people’s benefits during the pandemic will have devastating effects on families and children, Disabled People Against Cuts warn
Money with House
VOICES OF SCOTLAND / 25 May 2020
25 May 2020
The Tories would have us paying for this crisis to claw back normality for the most wealthy – we can’t allow that to happen, says JAMIE CALDWELL
Two actors wearing Nick Clegg (right)and David Cameron masks
Features / 16 April 2020
16 April 2020
JON TAIT’s wife was a nurse for 22 years and feels the pressure to go back – but, without adequate PPE thanks to chronic underfunding, it’s a dangerous step to take
Protest
Features / 15 April 2020
15 April 2020
SOPHIE WALTERS of Disabled People Against Cuts, asks — why were disabled people not given this option many years ago?
Britain / 29 March 2020
29 March 2020
Biffa
Britain / 24 February 2020
24 February 2020
Waste firms and charities call for urgent action to stop bin sleeping on day a man's body is found in a rubbish lorry
The sun rises over a cold Glasgow skyline featuring the Morr
Britain / 20 February 2020
20 February 2020
UCU and NUS activists take part in a demonstration over acce
Features / 12 February 2020
12 February 2020
Higher education staff are now regarded as ‘throwaway’ and are increasingly overworked and demoralised. RUTH HUNT reports
NEU logo
Britain / 11 February 2020
11 February 2020