Labour is Run by DEAD-BEHIND-THE-EYES Soulless Hacks – We Demand Change – Owen Jones
Barrage of bill hikes sees the cost-of-living crisis bite
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/barrage-of-bill-hikes-sees-the-cost-of-living-crisis-bite
Government must take action, union warns: ‘We can’t go on with billionaires getting ever richer whilst working people suffer’
CASH-STRAPPED Britons will be squeezed for an extra £66 every month from April as a barrage of bill hikes sees the cost-of-living crisis bite.
Millions of hard-up households, already paying what MPs said were “world-beatingly” high bills, will be forced to shell out even more for essentials from Tuesday.
GMB union urged ministers to take bold steps to help working people facing across-the-board price rises for energy, water, council tax, internet, road tax and the TV licence.
“Households have been struggling with the cost-of-living crisis for several years now,” said the union’s national secretary Andy Prendergast. “This latest set of increases shows there still isn’t any light at the end of the tunnel.
“The government must take bold steps to put money in people’s pockets,” he thundered. “We can’t go on with billionaires getting ever richer whilst working people suffer.”
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Cat Hobbs, founder and director of public service campaign group We Own It, said: “With bill hikes across many essential services this spring, it looks like the cost-of-living crisis is sadly here to stay.
“The word ‘essential’ is important here. Heat, shelter, water — these are all things that we need to survive and none of them are getting cheaper.
“Water is the poster-child for the failed privatisation experiment, with companies on the brink of collapse scrambling for more of our money.
“Companies that have racked up huge debts to pay dividends are now running out of other people’s cash.
“Decades of underinvestment has killed our rivers and put the whole water network at risk.
“Modern, publicly owned services must be the goal for any progressive government.”
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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/barrage-of-bill-hikes-sees-the-cost-of-living-crisis-bite
Reeves accused of balancing books on back of UK’s poorest
Labour is braced for a backlash from its MPs over welfare cuts called ‘appalling’ by a foodbank charity
Rachel Reeves was accused of balancing the books at the expense of the poor in her spring statement, as official figures showed three million households could lose £1,720 a year in benefits.
The chancellor confirmed welfare cuts of £4.8bn, but insisted the government’s priority was to restore stability to the public finances in the face of rising global borrowing costs.
Economists warned Reeves could be forced to come back with more tax rises in the autumn, with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) saying that any tariffs imposed by Donald Trump may upend their forecasts.
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Ruth Curtice, the director of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, said while Reeves was right to balance the books, she was “wrong to do so on the backs of low- to middle-income families, on whom two-thirds of the welfare cuts will fall”.
Helen Barnard, the director of policy at the food bank charity Trussell, said: “The insistence by the Treasury on driving through record cuts to disabled people’s social security to balance the books is both shocking and appalling. People at food banks are telling us they are terrified how they’ll survive.”
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The UN blasts Labour for its failures to address income inequality and poverty
DR DYLAN MURPHY asks why Labour is continuing the Tory war on the disabled, when viable alternatives have been spelt out in detail
IN LATE February of 2025 the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights issued a damning report into the failures of Labour to address income inequality and the deepening levels of poverty in the UK.
The UN committee criticised Labour for failing to address “income inequality or reducing poverty,” which hamper “the progressive realisation of economic, social and cultural rights.’’
Ironically enough, the UN called on Labour to increase spending on housing, health, education and social security in order to reverse the huge damage caused by blue Tory austerity from 2010 to 2024. Since this call the red Tories in power have announced their intention to make massive cuts to public spending across all government departments except defence and maybe health.
On the issue of social security, over which Labour is determined to make killer cuts, the UN expressed serious concern about the impact of blue Tory austerity which had “resulted in severe economic hardship, increased reliance on food banks, homelessness, negative impacts on mental health and the stigmatisation of benefit claimants.”
Of course, food bank usage under Labour continues to grow as does the stigmatisation of benefit claimants which Starmer and company have engaged in with relish over the last few months.
Starmer, Reeves and Kendall seem to take a sadistic glee in attacking the disabled through the platforms of the Tory media using ultra right-wing rags such as The Telegraph and Sun to stigmatise the sick and disabled.
The biggest irony in this recent UN report is its call for Labour to actually increase the value of disability benefits such as PIP so that the UK can meet “the recommendations made by the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.”
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