austerity

These damning stats tell you everything you need to know about Tory Britain

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UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Grant Shapps.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Grant Shapps. Credit: Simon Dawson / 10 Downing Street, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

https://leftfootforward.org/2023/09/these-damning-stats-tell-you-everything-you-need-to-know-about-tory-britain/

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A new report from the National Federation for Education Research (NFER) has exposed the shocking scale of child poverty in England. The NFER surveyed senior leaders and teachers at state funded primary and secondary schools, and the results were staggering:

  • 90 per cent of all schools were found to be providing uniforms and clothing to pupils
  • 70 per cent of schools were found to be providing food through parcels, food banks, food vouchers or subsidised breakfasts.
  • 84 per cent of senior school leaders report that the cost of living crisis has increased the numbers of pupils requiring additional support and the level of need they have.
  • More than a quarter of pupils in mainstream school require additional support for mental health and wellbeing.
  • 80 per cent of school leaders agree that cost of living pressures have increased safeguarding concerns and/or incidents in their schools.
  • More than three fifths of mainstream school leaders report that 50 per cent or more of pupils receiving additional support are not eligible for pupil premium (a scheme that provides additional funding for disadvantaged pupils).

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/09/these-damning-stats-tell-you-everything-you-need-to-know-about-tory-britain/

Continue ReadingThese damning stats tell you everything you need to know about Tory Britain

Damning report projects this is worst parliament on record for income growth

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Image of cash and pre-payment meter key
Image of cash and pre-payment meter key

https://leftfootforward.org/2023/09/damning-report-concludes-this-is-worst-parliament-on-record-for-income-growth/

Average income for UK workers will be worse in 2024 than 2019, think tank predicts

This parliament is the worst on record for income growth, a think tank has concluded after research into UK living standards revealed the average income for a UK worker is projected to be 4% lower in 2024 than in 2019.

A report published today by Resolution Foundation laid out the likely backdrop of living standards for a 2024 election, and, unsurprisingly, it does not look good for the Tory Government.

Although Rishi Sunak may meet his target of halving inflation by the end of 2023, the report lays out little sign of relief from cost of living pressures into the future, predicting three-years of income stagnation for UK workers, into 2025-26.

With a looming general election, this does not bode well for the Tories, with no example of a government ever managing to retain power with such a weak median income growth since comparable records began in the 1960s.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/09/damning-report-concludes-this-is-worst-parliament-on-record-for-income-growth/

Continue ReadingDamning report projects this is worst parliament on record for income growth

How Tory government policy has led to more than 2 million Brits dying

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/09/how-tory-government-policy-has-led-to-more-than-2-million-brits-dying/

Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
Rish! Sunak

Austerity has been deadly

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It is commonly assumed that neoliberal governments subject to elections, parliamentary opposition, critical press scrutiny and countervailing institutions do not engage in democidal practices. Think again. Elected government do not normally turn tanks and warplanes against their population, but they intentionally or unintentionally kill thousands of their citizens by inflicting poverty, austerity, low wages and poor healthcare. Recent history of the UK provides some evidence.

Since 2010, austerity and real wage cuts have been the policy choice of the Conservative government. At the end of June 2023, workers’ share of gross domestic product, in the forms of wage and salaries, shrank to around 50%, compared to 65.1% in 1976. The real average wage today is about the same level as in 2005. The state pension is the main source of income for majority of retirees. At 28%-30% of average earnings, it is one of the lowest in OECD countries. Even after adding private pensions, retirees fare badly. In its drive against public spending, the government reduced social security benefits by freezing their value or by increasing them by a lower rate than inflation.

The never-ending austerity has condemned millions to poverty. Out of a population of 67.7 million, 14.4 million Brits, including 4.2 million children, 8.1 million working-age adults and 2.1 million pensioners live in poverty. Poverty reduces access to good food, housing and healthcare. It incubates disease, anxiety, insecurity, health problems, and premature death.

The UK government has failed to make the required investment in healthcare. At the end of June 2023, some 7.6 million people in England alone were waiting for hospital treatment, compared to 2.5 million in 2010. With only 2.3 hospital beds per 1,000 people, the UK is ranked 23rdout of 24 European countries. Due to lack of healthcare, around 2.5 million have become chronically ill and are highly vulnerable.

The human cost of government policies is devastating. A study reported that between 2012 and 2019, government imposed austerity caused 335,000 excess deaths in England and Scotland i.e. nearly 48,000 a year. Replication of the same pattern across 13 years of Conservative rule could have caused 624,000 excess deaths.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/09/how-tory-government-policy-has-led-to-more-than-2-million-brits-dying/

Continue ReadingHow Tory government policy has led to more than 2 million Brits dying

Millions of households’ face fuel poverty as government support scheme ends, warns charity

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/07/millions-of-households-face-fuel-poverty-as-government-support-scheme-ends-warns-charity/

‘Without more support too many will continue to rack up unmanageable debts or try and survive in unheated homes causing ill health, misery, and avoidable death.’

Image of cash and pre-payment meter key
Image of cash and pre-payment meter key

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The National Energy Action (NAE), which works to provide support to those who cannot afford to heat their home, says around 6.6 million households across Britain will be in fuel poverty. The charity warns that despite cost-of-living payments for households on mean-tested benefits, vulnerable families will not receive any government support.

The charity cautions that households who aren’t on qualifying benefits – or aren’t on benefits at all – will miss out. This may include people who are severely in debt, those on low incomes who need to spend more energy at home due their disability or the inefficiency of their homes, unpaid carers, households on low incomes who have seen a drop in their incomes due to a recent bereavement, or households that, until this year, were eligible for wider assistance from programmes like the Warm Home Discount but are now no longer able to access energy rebates. 

Adam Scorer, chief executive of the NEA, warns that despite retail prices falling from July, many of the people the charity helps are still struggling. Scorer notes how two-thirds of households across Britain will no longer benefit from any assistance to offset the impacts of the energy crisis and Ofgem’s price cap will offer ‘limited protection to these households.’

“Millions of vulnerable people miss out on cost-of-living payments as they aren’t on the right benefits or no benefits at all. These people need additional help but are being left to manage bills that are still on average over £1,000 per year more expensive compared to the start of the crisis,” said Scorer.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/07/millions-of-households-face-fuel-poverty-as-government-support-scheme-ends-warns-charity/

Continue ReadingMillions of households’ face fuel poverty as government support scheme ends, warns charity

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party Wants to Continue Destroying the NHS

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https://jacobin.com/2023/06/labour-party-uk-nhs-health-care-privatization/

NHS sign

If it wins the next general election in the UK, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party could try to fix the damage inflicted on the National Health Service by years of Tory austerity. But Labour seems set on further privatizing the NHS.

Everywhere you look in the health service, the signs of thirteen years of austerity and willful Tory neglect are apparent. The Tories have, throughout their time in government, allowed the National Health Service (NHS) to go to rack and ruin, sending staff morale crashing through the floor and putting patients’ lives at risk.     

The waiting list for surgery or specialist clinical care — partly a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic but exacerbated by years of chronic underfunding — stands at a record high of 7.22 million. Millions of patients, meanwhile, are struggling to get general practitioner (GP) appointments due to the immense pressures on NHS primary care.  

Ambulance waiting times are alarmingly long: in December, response times in England were the worst on record, while the number of patients waiting twelve hours or more to be admitted to accidents and emergency department (A&E) also hit a new all-time high. NHS dentistry, in addition, is in a state of almost-total collapse. 

Both opinion polls and the recent local elections in England indicate that the Tories are on track to lose the next general election. While the differences between Keir Starmer’s Labour and Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives are narrowing all the time, it might at least be expected that the Labour Party would repair the worst of the damage done since 2010. The NHS remains the great survivor of postwar social democracy. But statements from the Labour front bench suggest otherwise. 

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https://jacobin.com/2023/06/labour-party-uk-nhs-health-care-privatization/

Continue ReadingKeir Starmer’s Labour Party Wants to Continue Destroying the NHS