The legislation is an attempt to ‘drive a wedge between working people’
General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) Paul Nowak took to the airwaves this morning to speak out about the anti-strikes bill which will be voted on by MPs this evening.
He slammed media accusations of union ‘scare tactics’ by laying out the reality of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill which could see workers lose their job for taking strike action.
As media presenters sought to play down the implications of the bill, Nowak said threatening workers with the sack was ‘untenable’ and that the real reason it was being put through was to ‘demonise trade unions’ and ‘drive a wedge between working people’.
“There is no public appetite at all to see nurses, paramedics, teachers, railway [ workers …] sacked for exercising what most people will think as a fundamental British liberty, the right to strike,” Nowak said on Sky News.
“To remove it would put the UK as a real international outlier.”
The fabulous folk atLed By Donkeys have pulled out another corker of a campaign… this time focused on Nigel Farage’s extraordinary admittance that Brexit has been a flop.
Appearing on BBC Newsnight this week, the former UKIP leader, who played a leading role in Britain’s exit from the EU, admitted that Brexit has failed. Presenter Victoria Derbyshire informed Farage of a recent poll that showed around one in five Leave voters regret their decision.
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Led By Donkeys, which established in December 2018 as an anti-Brexit group, and have since been vocal critics of the actions of the Conservative government, are urging people to chip in to raise money to get ‘Brexit has failed’ Nigel Farage billboards erected across the UK. For every £10,000 raised, they can get 20 billboard sites installed.
Unsurprisingly, within just a few days, the campaign smashed its £75,000 target.
In March 2023, the inflation rate for food and non-alcoholic beverages rose to 19.2 percent, according to Office for National Statistics. This is the fastest rate food inflation has risen in 45 years. ONS figures also show that more than half (51 percent) of adults in the UK are worried about the price of food.
Analysis of official figures by the Lib Dems, shows that customers face higher prices in supermarkets, despite wholesale costs having fallen. For example, a loaf of wholemeal bread has risen by 26 percent, even though the cost of breadmaking wheat has fallen by 14 percent. Similarly, the price of tomatoes has soared by 13 percent despite farmers having dropped prices by 7 percent.
Separate figures from Which? show that meat, yoghurt and vegetables doubled in price in the year to March.
As inflation continues to rip through family budgets, and consumers are forced to pay sky-high food prices, the government has come under fresh pressure to crackdown on supermarkets. This week, farmers, supermarket bosses, food manufacturers and consumer group representatives gathered at 10 Downing Street to discuss Britain’s food security. But what [are] the reasons behind the UK’s crippling food inflation?
April 2023 Surfers Against Sewage and Extinction Rebellion protests in St Agnes, Perranporth, Truro and Charlestown which unveiled spoof Blue Plaques to the MPs and Conservative Government who allowed raw sewage to be dumped in the sea (Image: Surfers Against Sewage)
Surfers Against Sewage are hosting a national day of action on Saturday the 20th May 2023. There will be 12 lead protests hosted nation wide on this date, each one protesting against each of the UK water companies, as well as a few smaller DIY protests.
The UK sewage system is at breaking point. It’s under huge strain from a growing population and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events caused by climate change. Built on a Victorian system, our decaying sewage infrastructure is in desperate need of investment.
But rather than spending money where it’s needed, water companies are stuffing their pockets with our money while failing environmental targets and pillaging our waterways. They continue to get away with regularly dumping untreated sewage into our blue spaces for millions of hours every year whilst regulators and The Government turn a blind eye. This needs to stop now.
We REFUSE to spend another summer swimming in sh*t and we DEMAND that water companies stop making a profit from pollution and start investing in our future, for the sake of people and the planet.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has organised an emergency protest on Monday 22nd May for 6.00pm outside Parliament Square, as it fights to protect the right to strike which is under attack from the Tory government.
Mick Lynch from the RMT, Matt Wrack from the FBU and Kevin Courtney will be speaking at the rally, with Unison, USDAW and the PCS union all showing their support.
The government’s strikes bill, which will empower employers to sue unions and sack staff in crucial sectors if minimum service levels aren’t maintained, has been slammed as an attack on the fundamental right to strike and as a draconian piece of legislation. The Bill essentially means that when workers lawfully vote to strike in health, education, fire, transport, border security and nuclear decommissioning, they could be forced to attend work – and sacked if they don’t comply.
The TUC said in a press statement: “We can’t afford to lose the right to strike. But multi-millionaire Tory politicians are attacking our right to strike for better pay and fair treatment at work.
Former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has once more refused to apologise for his disastrous mini-budget which caused financial turmoil and which eventually led to him being sacked and Liz Truss being forced out of office.
Kwarteng, whose mini-budget resulted in chaos on the financial markets, the pound hitting an all-time low against the dollar and mortgage rates soaring, said he was ‘not in the business of forgiveness’.
“I’m not going to apologise,” he told Channel 4 News.
Former Tory MP and now Reform UK party member Ann Widdecombe has been widely condemned for her ‘out of touch’ and appalling comments on families struggling to make ends meet during the cost of living crisis.
Widdecombe was asked on BBC 2’s Politics Live programme about the cost of living crisis and what advice she would give to viewers who could not even afford the basics.
Jo Coburn asked the former Tory MP: “What do you say to those viewers who literally can’t afford to pay even for some of the basics – if they’ve gone up the way that cheese sandwich has, with all its ingredients?”
“Well, then you don’t do the cheese sandwich,” Widdecombe replied.
Her comments were immediately condemned by fellow panellist Rachel Cunliffe who said: “We’re talking about absolute basics and staples. We’re talking about own-brand pasta, we’re talking about bread, we’re talking about families who can’t afford to feed their children.
‘The First Past the Post system hands more power to the establishment than MPs or people.’
The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has set out the reasons for why the Labour Party should back a change to the voting system in favour of proportional representation (PR), despite party leader Keir Starmer saying that voting reform will not be a priority should Labour win power.
Although the Labour Party conference last year overwhelmingly backed a motion calling on the party to embrace a proportional electoral system, the leadership has made clear that it would not do as the motion says.
Since then, at the Progressive Britain conference last week, Starmer made clear that voting reform would not be among the priorities should Labour win power.
Burnham however has urged the party to adopt PR, saying that the current first-past-the-post voting system hands more power to the establishment than MPs or people and changing the system to proportional representation would mean “every vote would matter”.
Carla Denyer claims Greens are the strongest party on democratic reform
Carla Denyer, Cost of Living Crisis, Bristol, 2 April 2022
The Green Party has slammed the Tories for dragging democracy in the UK in a dangerous direction.
Speaking at an event last night, co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, Carla Denyer, laid out how the Tory’s have assaulted our democracy – and how the Greens would solve it.
Denyer discussed how to restore public faith in politics and argued that the Greens were the strongest party on democratic reform.
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The Greens have said they would apply proportional representation for all elections to all levels of government, along with bringing the voting age down to 16.
They would introduce devolution, mirroring systems in Europe by giving more power to local and regional government and Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Parliament. They would also introduce an elected upper house to replace hereditary power in the House of Lord and set up a Citizen’s Convention.
Introducing a fairer system of state funding for political parties, which would hope to eliminate the dependence of large private donations and strengthen transparency on political lobbying and donations. One in four people believe that party donors have the most influence on government decisions, according to Unlock Democracy.
Denyer also accused the media of preventing democratic conversations through its bias towards certain political parties.
