… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Category: Cost of Living crisis

  • Unite says bin strike deal closer if council puts public promises in writing

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/unite-says-bin-strike-deal-closer-if-council-puts-public-promises-writing

    Rubbish bags are taken away on Poplar Road in Birmingham, Aril 16, 2025

    THE Unite union called out Birmingham City Council today over the ongoing bin strike negotiations, warning they would be much closer to a deal if the authority “put in writing what it is saying in public.”

    More than 350 refuse workers have been on strike since March 11 over plans to cut the vital role of waste recycling collection officer (WRCO).

    According to Unite, it will lead to 150 of its members having their pay slashed by up to £8,000 a year.

    On Monday, workers rejected the council’s latest offer. Unite said the proposal still involved substantial pay cuts and failed to address other potential wage reductions for 200 drivers.

    Birmingham City Council leader John Cotton said that the council made a “fair and reasonable offer that means that no-one has to lose any pay at all, with alternative roles offered within the service, or indeed a promotion to work as a driver.”

    He tried again to reassure the public today, telling the BBC “we’re in a position where nobody needs to be losing income.”

    But Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said they appeared to be living in a “parallel universe.”

    She said: “Yet again, John Cotton is saying one thing in public while his local officers are saying another in the negotiating room and in writing.

    “If the council puts in writing what it says in public then we would likely be much closer to a deal.

    …

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/unite-says-bin-strike-deal-closer-if-council-puts-public-promises-writing

  • Quarter of adults consider refusing to pay water bills amid sewage outrage

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/quarter-adults-consider-refusing-pay-water-bills-amid-sewage-outrage

    Money is stacked on top of an water bill

    AS FRUSTRATION grows over failure to tackle pollution, new research revealed yesterday that over a quarter of adults in England have considered withholding water bill payments.

    A new report from Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) has accused the water industry of falling short of the Environment Agency’s target to reduce pollution incidents by 40 per cent.

    Instead, they recorded a 30 per cent increase to 2,487 incidents, the highest in a decade.

    Polling 2,000 adults, SAS found that 27 per cent of people in England have considered not paying their bill due to the actions of their water supplier.

    Water bills surged by 47 per cent this month and are expected to keep rising, with customers projected to pay £160 more in 2030 compared with 2024.

    …

    Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/quarter-adults-consider-refusing-pay-water-bills-amid-sewage-outrage

    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)
    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)

  • NEU president slams Labour’s renewed austerity

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    (left to right) Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner clap their hands during the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, September 22, 2024

    NATIONAL Education Union (NEU) president Sarah Kilpatrick slammed Labour’s renewed austerity today, telling the NEU annual conference that Tory welfare cuts had killed her disabled father.

    She accused ministers of “perpetuating and repeating the shameful pattern of punching-down and finger-pointing” by “balancing the books on the backs of the poor.”

    On the first day of the conference in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, she described how her father had died at the age of 56 after being stripped of his disability benefits under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.

    She said that she had experienced poverty as a working-class child in Newcastle upon Tyne and was his carer for a number of years.

    “As Iain Duncan Smith gleefully applauded the welfare cuts, I represented my father in a tribunal against the DWP [Department for Work and Pensions] decision to remove his disability benefits,” she told delegates.

    “He’d had his gas cut off. Couldn’t afford groceries. His elderly mother was adding tins of food to her shopping to bulk up what I was buying for him, but he isolated himself further still.

    “He lost a lot of weight during that time and never really recovered.”

    In 2013, her father became one of an estimated 120,000 people who died as a result of the Tories’ austerity programme, she said.

    “When Wes Streeting brags to the Tories across the benches that Labour have done what they never could and slashed the welfare bill, this is what they mean,” said Ms Kilpatrick.

    “Let’s be clear. Nearly two decades of economic permacrisis has not been caused by disabled people.”

    Nor has it been caused by the elderly, refugees, the trans community or children in poverty, she said.

    …

    Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/neu-president-slams-labours-renewed-austerity

    Keir Starmer says that his Labour Party is intensely relaxed about assaulting the very poorest and most vulnerable.
    Keir Starmer says that his Labour Party is intensely relaxed about assaulting the very poorest and most vulnerable.

  • Ill and disabled people will be made ‘invisible’ by UK benefit cuts, say experts

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    Keir Starmer says that his Labour Party is intensely relaxed about assaulting the very poorest and most vulnerable.
    Keir Starmer says that his Labour Party is intensely relaxed about assaulting the very poorest and most vulnerable.

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/08/ill-disabled-people-uk-benefit-cuts-policy-in-practice

    Hundreds of thousands of seriously ill and disabled people will become “invisible” and cut adrift from local support services as a result of the government’s £5bn programme of disability benefit cuts, experts have warned.

    Claimants who do not qualify for personal independence payment (Pip) or incapacity benefits would lose a “marker of need” with local councils and NHS bodies, making it “nearly impossible” for them to access help, said the consultancy Policy in Practice.

    This would “effectively erase some of the most vulnerable people” from the system – including those with life-limiting illnesses including cancer, multiple sclerosis and lung conditions – while making it harder for care services to deliver preventive support

    More than 230,000 disabled people will lose access to Pip and the incapacity element of universal credit as a result of the changes, losing at least £8,100 a year, Policy in Practice estimates in a briefing. Nearly 600,000 more who do not claim universal credit will lose or not qualify in future for Pip.

    On top of the direct financial hit, disabled people will struggle for visibility in local care systems that use disability benefit awards to deploy support and protection, from housing and council tax relief to debt enforcement safeguards.

    …

    Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/08/ill-disabled-people-uk-benefit-cuts-policy-in-practice

  • ‘These cuts will place yet more strain on an NHS already creaking at the seams’

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/these-cuts-will-place-yet-more-strain-on-an-nhs-already-creaking-at-the-seams

    (left to right) Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Dr James Marsh, Group Deputy CEO for Epsom and St Helier Hospitals, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and NHS CEO Amanda Pritchard during a visit to Elective Orthopaedic Centre in Epsom, Surrey, January 6, 2025

    Labour warned that workers expect better as anger mounts over welfare cuts and public-sector pay

    WORKERS expect better, Labour has been warned by the country’s biggest trade union as anger mounts over cruel welfare cuts and public-sector pay.

    Protests met Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s address to Unison health conference in Liverpool yesterday, following a sharp rebuke to the government from its general secretary Christina McAnea on Tuesday.

    Ms McAnea had thanked the government for taking steps to improve workers’ conditions through the upcoming Employment Rights Bill.

    But she said that some of Labour’s decisions, such as stopping winter fuel payments and inflicting “heartless” cuts to welfare, had left her “baffled and speechless.”

    “These cuts will place yet more strain on an NHS already creaking at the seams,” she warned.

    “They’re counter-productive, will cost more in the long run and are morally wrong.

    “The best way to turn the NHS around is by focusing on the workforce.

    “There’s simply no route to fixing the NHS that doesn’t first involve sorting health workers’ pay,” which declined in real terms for over a decade under the Tories.

    She called Labour’s 2.8 per cent pay rise for workers “ludicrous,” adding that it “won’t encourage experienced staff to stay in the NHS, nor will it be enough to persuade new recruits to join.”

    …

    Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/these-cuts-will-place-yet-more-strain-on-an-nhs-already-creaking-at-the-seams

    Keir Starmer says that his Labour Party is intensely relaxed about assaulting the very poorest and most vulnerable.
    Keir Starmer says that his Labour Party is intensely relaxed about assaulting the very poorest and most vulnerable.