Poorest UK households pay rising share of income on council tax, study finds

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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/feb/17/uk-poorest-households-income-share-council-tax-resolution-foundation

The poorest fifth of households paid 4.8% of their income on council tax or domestic rates in 2020-21, up from 2.9% in 2002-03. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Resolution Foundation report says failure to reform has ‘slowly recreated the issues that undid the poll tax’

Britain’s poorest households are paying an increasing share of their income on council tax, according to new analysis that likened it to the poll tax that contributed to the downfall of Margaret Thatcher.

The poorest fifth of households paid 4.8% of their income on council tax in England, Wales and Scotland and on domestic rates in Northern Ireland in the 2020-21 financial year, up from 2.9% in 2002-3, according to research by the Resolution Foundation.

Council taxes are one of the few levies on wealth in the UK, with different systems applied in each of the four countries.

However, they are seen by economists as deeply flawed, not least because the tax in England and Scotland is levied based on the value of properties in 1991, despite huge changes in the spread of wealth over the past three decades. Wales has updated its system to use 2003 valuations, while Scotland raised the rates on higher-banded properties in 2017. Northern Ireland still has a system of domestic rates, which predates council tax.

Highlighting the “regressive” nature of the tax, meaning poorer households pay more of their income towards it than richer ones, the Resolution Foundation said the failure to reform council tax had made it progressively worse.

Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/feb/17/uk-poorest-households-income-share-council-tax-resolution-foundation

Continue ReadingPoorest UK households pay rising share of income on council tax, study finds

100,000 protest in Brussels against Arizona coalition’s austerity and attacks on rights

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Original article by Ana Vračar from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Trade union youth bloc during protest against austerity and cuts. Source: MPLP-GVHV/Facebook

A mass protest filled the streets of Brussels, rejecting the Arizona coalition’s plans to attack social and labor rights

100,000 people, led by trade unions, took to the streets of Brussels on Thursday, February 13, to protest the anti-worker policies of the newly appointed Arizona coalition government. The demonstrators demanded respect for labor rights, including pension policies that ensure dignified lives, as well as the protection of the right to protest. They called for a society built on solidarity, peace, and social progress, rejecting the “every-man-for-himself” mentality promoted by the government.

Workers who joined the protest expressed their fears of losing their livelihoods under the new administration but also spoke of the inspiration they felt in standing together. “It’s incredible to see so many people—firefighters, soldiers, childcare workers, warehouse workers,” an Industeel worker told the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA) during the protest. “I even ran into one of my old teachers who is now retired. I hadn’t seen him in years.”

If implemented, the government’s program is expected to deal serious blows to the working class. Planned changes to the pension system would force many to work longer, including in physically demanding sectors like construction and healthcare, where exhaustion takes an early toll. At the same time, protections in the workplace would be reduced, including through the liberalization of night work and overtime, while social services crucial to workers’ well-being would face severe cuts.

Read more: Belgium’s Arizona coalition threatens more austerity and attacks on civil rights

According to a brief published by Medics for the People (MPLP-GVHV), healthcare services are projected to suffer half a billion euros in losses compared to earlier plans—and approximately 1.5 billion euros less than what is actually needed. This is despite claims from the governing majority that healthcare funding will remain stable or increase. The cuts will undoubtedly impact both workers and patients. Healthcare staff, already stretched to their limits, will face further strain, while patients will experience declining service quality and accessibility. Similar repercussions are expected across other sectors, while the wealthiest will remain unaffected.

Another major shift outlined by the Arizona government targets trade unions. Under the pretense of ensuring accountability for trade union actions—framed as preventing “economic damage” by the administration—the government seeks to weaken organized labor. “The aim is for trade unions to be held liable for any economic impact arising from their actions, forcing them into costly and time-consuming legal battles,” the PTB-PVDA stated in its analysis. “This way, unions will have less money and time to engage with workers.”

These attacks on labor rights come as no surprise, given the widespread opposition workers across Belgium have already voiced against Bart De Wever’s cabinet. The protests have been supported by collectives of health and education workers, international solidarity groups, civil society organizations, and youth networks—all of whom expect to bear the burden of the reforms. The administration is also planning to limit public dissent. “To push through its plan for social destruction, the Arizona government is launching an unprecedented attack on democratic rights in Belgium,” PTB-PVDA warned. “The objective is clear: to weaken and silence any opposition.”

However, social movements are ready to fight back. Following this week’s protest, they have already announced new actions, including mobilizations on March 8, International Working Women’s Day, and a general strike on March 31.

Original article by Ana Vračar from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue Reading100,000 protest in Brussels against Arizona coalition’s austerity and attacks on rights

Right-Wing Sleuths Find the LA Fires Culprit: Once Again, It’s Wokeness

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Original article by Ari Paul republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

CBS Evening News (1/13/25) cited Colorado’s 2021 Marshall Fire as another example of how climate disruption is making wildfires more destructive.

The devastation of the ongoing Los Angeles fires is an alarm going off, but also the result of society having hit the snooze button long ago (Democracy Now!1/9/25CBS1/13/25). Game-changing fires destroyed Paradise, California (NPR11/8/23), in 2023, and Lahaina, Hawaii, in 2024—clear warnings, if any were still needed, that the climate catastrophe had arrived.

“The evidence connecting the climate crisis and extreme wildfires is clear,” the Nature Conservancy (7/9/24) said. “Increased global temperatures and reduced moisture lead to drier conditions and extended fire seasons.”

The scientific journal Fire Ecology (7/24/23) reported that “climate change is expected to continue to exacerbate impacts to forested ecosystems by increasing the frequency, size and severity of wildfires across the western United States.”

Now we are watching one of America’s largest cities burn. It’s a severe reminder that the kind of disruption we experienced in the beginning of the Covid pandemic in 2020 is the new normal under climate change.

The right-wing media, however, have found a culprit—it’s not climate change, but Democratic Party–led wokeness. The coverage demonstrates once again that the W-word can be used to blame literally anything in the Murdoch fantasyland.

‘Preoccupation With DEI’

Alyssia Finley (Wall Street Journal1/12/25): “A cynic might wonder if environmentalists interfered with fire prevention in hope of evicting humans.” Another cynic might wonder if the Journal publishes smears without evidence as part of its business model.

“Megyn Kelly sounded off on Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley and Mayor Karen Bass,” the New York Post (1/8/25) reported. Former Fox News host Kelly said “that the officials’ preoccupation with diversity, equity and inclusion [DEI] programs distracted them from the city’s fire-combating duties.”

Wall Street Journal editorial board member Allysia Finley (1/12/25) echoed the charge: “Bloated union contracts and DEI may not have directly hampered the fire response, but they illustrate the government’s wrongheaded priorities.” In other words, the paper didn’t have evidence to blame the fires on firefighter salaries or department diversity, but decided to insinuate as much anyway.

Other conservative journalists were more direct, like CNN pundit Scott Jennings, who went on CNN NewsNight (1/8/25) to assert:

As a matter of public policy in California, the main interest in the fire department lately has been in DEI programming and budget cuts, and now we have this massive fire, and people are upset.

As the Daily Beast (1/9/25) noted, “His response was part of a Republican kneejerk reaction that included President-elect Donald Trump blaming ‘liberals’ and state Gov. Gavin Newsom.”

The Washington Post (1/10/25) reported that Trump-supporting X owner Elon Musk

has been inundating his 212 million followers with posts casting blame for the blazes on Democrats and diversity policies, amplifying narratives that have taken hold among far-right activists and Republican leaders.

Liel Leibovitz, editor-at-large at the conservative Jewish magazine Tablet, blamed the LA devastation on the “woke religion” (New York Post1/9/25).

“There are many things we’ve learned that the Los Angeles Fire Department needs—and more women firefighters isn’t one of them,” moaned National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry (New York Post1/15/25). “Los Angeles for years has been in the grips of a bizarre obsession with recruiting more women firefighters.”

Blaming gay singers

Mentioned by Fox News (1/10/25): $13,000 allocated to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Heritage Month programs. Not mentioned by Fox News: a $126 million boost to the LAPD budget.

Fox & Friends (1/9/251/9/25) blamed the city’s Democratic leaders and the fire chief for the destruction. Fox News Digital (1/10/25) said:

While Los Angeles officials were stripping millions in funding from their fire department ahead of one of the most destructive wildfires in state history, hundreds of thousands of dollars were allocated to fund programs such as a “Gay Men’s Chorus” and housing for the transgender homeless.

You may notice the shift from “millions” to “hundreds of thousands”—the latter, obviously, can’t explain what happened to the former. What can far better explain it is that the city focused much more on funding cops than firefighters (Intercept1/8/25). The mayor’s budget plan offered “an increase of more than $138 million for the Los Angeles Police Department; and a decrease of about $23 million for the LA Fire Department” (KTTV4/22/24). KABC (1/9/25) reported more recent numbers, saying the “fire department’s budget was cut by $17.6 million,” while the “city’s police department budget increased by $126 million,” according to the city’s controller.

And in 2023, the LA City Council approved salary increases for cops over objections that these pay boosts “would pull money away from mental health clinicians, homeless outreach workers and many other city needs” (LA Times8/23/23). The cop-pay deal was reportedly worth $1 billion (KNBC8/23/23).

LAFD cuts under Mayor Bass were, in fact, big news (KTTV1/15/25). Fox overlooked the comparison with the police, one regularly made by city beat reporters who cover public safety and city budgets, and went straight to blaming gay singers.

Crusade against ‘woke’

Contrary to the Daily Mail‘s headline (1/14/25), former California first lady Maria Shriver Maria Shriver did not “tear into LA’s woke leaders”; rather, she complained about LA’s insufficient funding of public needs.

Or take the Daily Mail (1/14/25), a right-wing British tabloid with a huge US footprint, whose headline said former California first lady “Maria Shriver Is Latest Celebrity to Tear Into LA’s Woke Leaders.” But the story went on to say that Shriver had decried the cuts to the LAFD, citing no evidence that she was fighting some culture war against women firefighters.

Shriver, the ex-wife of actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, was pointing the finger at austerity and calling for more public spending. In other words, Shriver was siding with LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley, who had complained that city budget cuts had failed her department (CNN1/12/25). The Mail’s insistence on calling this a crusade against “woke” is just another example of how tediously the conservative media apply this word to almost anything.

While these accusations highlight diversification in the LA firefighting force, the right never offers real evidence that these hiring practices lead to any kind of hindering of fire response, as University of Southern California education professor Shaun Harper (Time1/13/25) noted. If anything, the right admits that miserly budgeting, usually considered a virtue in the conservative philosophy, is the problem.

Equal opportunity disasters

These talking points among right-wing politicians and their sycophants in the media serve several purposes. They bury the idea that climate change, driven by fossil fuels and out-of-control growth, has anything to do with the rise in extreme weather. They pin the blame on Democrats: LA is a blue city in a blue state. And they continue the racist and sexist drumbeat that all of society’s ills can be pinned on the advancement of women and minorities.

There is, of course, an opportunity to look at political mismanagement, including the cutbacks in the fire department. But natural disasters—intensified by climate change and exacerbated by poor political leadership—have ravaged unwoke, Republican-dominated states, as well, meaning Democrats don’t have a monopoly on blame.

Hurricane Ian practically destroyed Sanibel Island in Florida, a state that has been living with Trumpism for some time under Gov. Ron DeSantis. Hurricane Helene also ravaged that state, as well as western North Carolina, a state that went to Trump in the last three elections. Hurricane Harvey drowned Texas’ largest city, Houston, and the rest of Texas has suffered power outages and shortages, due to both extreme cold and summer spikes in energy demand.

Climate change, and the catastrophes it brings to the earth, does not discriminate against localities based on their populations’ political leanings. But conservative media do.

Metastasizing mythology

Ari Paul (In These Times8/31/15): “The more progress made in racial and gender diversity, the more white male firefighters will denounce the changes and say that increased diversity is only the result of lowering standards.”

Meanwhile, real firefighters know what the real problem is. The Western Fire Chiefs Association (3/5/24) said:

Global warming pertains to the increased rise in Earth’s average surface temperature, largely caused by human activity, such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation. These practices emit greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) into the atmosphere. These gases trap heat, resulting in a gradual increase in global temperatures over time. Recent data on fire and trends suggests that global extreme fire incidents could rise by up to 14% by the year 2030, 30% by 2050, and 50% by the end of the century. The impact of global warming is seen particularly in the western United States, where record-setting wildfires have occurred in recent years. Fourteen of the 20 largest wildfires on record have been in California over the past 15 years.

Conservative media can ignore all this, because the notion that cultural liberalism has tainted firefighting isn’t new. I covered efforts to diversify the New York City Fire Department as a reporter for the city’s labor-focused weekly Chief-Leader, and I saw firsthand that the resistance to the efforts were based on the idea that minority men weren’t smart enough and women (white and otherwise) weren’t strong enough (PBS3/28/06New York Times3/18/14In These Times8/31/15).

What I found interesting in that case was that other major fire departments had achieved higher levels of integration, and no one was accusing those departments of falling behind in their duties. At the same time, while the FDNY resisted diversification, the New York Police Department, almost worshipped by right-wing media, embraced it (New York Post9/8/146/10/16).

This racist and sexist mythology has metastasized in the Republican Party and its propaganda apparatus for years. With Trump coming back into power, these media outlets will feel more empowered to regurgitate this line of thinking, both during this disaster in LA and in the disasters ahead of us.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

Continue ReadingRight-Wing Sleuths Find the LA Fires Culprit: Once Again, It’s Wokeness

Labour doubles down on slashing billions from DWP’s disability benefits bill

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https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/dwp-disability-benefits-bill-high-court-ruling/

Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall speaking in parliament. Image: House of Commons/ Flickr

The Labour government has indicated that it will stick with Tory plans to cut disability benefits after a High Court judge ruled the previous government’s consultation into the plans was unlawful.

The proposals would cut around £400 a month from the disability benefits of hundreds of thousands of new applicants by 2029, compared to what they would receive under the current system.

Earlier today (16 January) Mr Justice Calver ruled in favour of disability activist Ellen Clifford, who had brought a judicial review of the public consultation that was held by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in autumn 2023. 

The proposals would change the way the work capability assessment (WCA) functions, by reducing the weight attached to difficulties with mobility and getting around in considering applicants’ level of disability

Responding to today’s verdict, a government spokesperson said: “The judge has found the previous government failed to adequately explain their proposals. As part of wider reforms that help people into work and ensure fiscal sustainability, the government will re-consult on the WCA descriptor changes, addressing the shortcomings in the previous consultation, in light of the judgment.

“The government intends to deliver the full level of savings in the public finances forecasts.”

It is not clear if Labour will consult on all the proposals in the original consultation, some of which were subsequently dropped, or whether it will only consult on the proposals that the last government chose to take forward.

The High Court ruling doesn’t force the government to ditch the proposals, although it would make it very difficult to proceed with them without holding a new consultation first. 

Article continues at https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/dwp-disability-benefits-bill-high-court-ruling/

Continue ReadingLabour doubles down on slashing billions from DWP’s disability benefits bill

Ministers warned to stop the rush to ‘political suicide’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/ministers-warned-to-stop-the-rush-to-political-suicide

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference at the QEII Centre, London, November 25, 2024

Leading left MP and former shadow chancellor John McDonnell issued the warning to Rachel Reeves as the Chancellor returned from her China trip to confront the bond market crisis.

Mr McDonnell, presently suspended from the Labour whip for opposing the cruel two-child benefit cap, told BBC radio: “There is obviously a problem.

“There’s turbulence in the international markets, and we’ve just got to see those through.

“You don’t turn to cuts, certainly, because not only will that be politically suicidal, that would undermine the political support upon which Labour got elected.

“In addition to that, you would be taking demand out of the economy, and you would be looking at turning a crisis into a recession.

“So I think you just have to see through the turbulence in the markets.”

Mr McDonnell also reminded the government that voters matter more than markets.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/ministers-warned-to-stop-the-rush-to-political-suicide

Continue ReadingMinisters warned to stop the rush to ‘political suicide’