Europe polarising around austerity and racism
By Nicky Dempsey
Europe is increasingly polarised. The decisive issues in the latest European elections were austerity and racism, with parties implementing austerity continuing to lose votes.
austerity
Sinn Féin’s stunning advance
By Frances Davis
In last week’s elections Sinn Féin stood on a strong anti-austerity programme, both north and south, with a clear, left alternative economic policy coupled with a strong advocacy of the peace process and for Irish reunification. Its vote is the strongest for the party since 1918.
NUT digs in for a war not a battle
By Paul Cranston
Teachers will be taking further action against this government because their pay and conditions are under sustained attack, the scale of that deterioration being illustrated in the graphs below (originally published here).
Budget sets out plan for permanent austerity
By Nicky Dempsey
George Osborne’s latest Budget makes it clear that austerity policies will continue for years to come, for at least another five years. He also announced a cap on welfare expenditure, a toxic effort to blame the poor and unemployed for the crisis of the financial sector and capital in general.
The ‘Great Stagnation’ and spreading world social instability
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.
Why women are at the centre of the fight against austerity
By Annabel Kerr
Since the impact of austerity measures first started to bite in 2010 we have been aware that it will be those who are already worse off who will be most hit by the cuts and job losses.