Britain

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 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.

Osborne puts energy company profits before saving lives and the climate

6th December 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Bridget Robertson

Rising energy bills mean that a quarter of the population of Britain now has to spend more than 10 per cent of their income on energy, at the same time as energy company profits have increased by 77 per cent in one year alone.

This has meant thousands of households are being forced to choose between heating and eating as the Tory assault on living standards takes its toll. However, for the vulnerable the consequences are even more serious. Last winter 31 000 people died prematurely, with around a third of those deaths attributable to living in a cold home.

Labour needs an alternative to austerity

21st November 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Paul Roberts

Since using Party conference to shift the campaign agenda to defending ordinary peoples’ living standards, Labour’s support has risen in the polls, party activists have been invigorated and within sections of Labour’s ranks a discussion on alternatives to austerity has opened up.