National week of action – Stop the sell off of student loans

31st January 2014 Socialist Action 0

By Jennifer Nash

Next week students across the country will be taking part in a week of action to oppose the government’s latest attack on students and education: the planned privatisation of the student loan book. Activities are already planned at 50 university and college campuses nationwide.

The sell-off of student loans is just the latest major assault on education under the current government; following the tripling of tuition fees, the scrapping of Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) plus the austerity agenda which is hitting the living standards of students hard.

The ‘Great Stagnation’ and spreading world social instability

19th January 2014 Socialist Action 0

By Peter Wilson

Five years into the current economic crisis it is possible to see beyond the immediate impact of the global financial crisis and recession to see clearly some of the structural shifts that have taken place. A key change that has taken place is a sharp fall in capital creation, and therefore investment, in the imperialist countries. Given that investment is responsible for the bulk of economic growth, there is no immediate possibility of rapid growth in these economies being recreated. The cumulative effect of the resulting economic stagnation in the imperialist centres lies behind the spreading of social and political instability to widening areas of the world.

The ideological point of the benefits cap

14th January 2014 Socialist Action 0

By Linda Anderson

New government figures underline that the benefits cap is all about ideology.

The figures show that 33,000 households were affected by the bedroom tax. Undoubtedly hard news for those people affected – and many of those bearing the brunt will be children. More than half of the total number of households affected so far are single parent ones. Single parent households are, in the vast majority, headed by women. So this is a policy hitting women – part of an assault on the post-war welfare state that is sledge-hammering away at the social and economic status of women – and children in the poorest households.