Union brands crisis a ‘national shame made in Downing Street’
AMBULANCE performance times are now the worst on record, the latest data revealed today, with unions branding it a “national disgrace made in 10 Downing Street.”
One in 10 people were left waiting for ambulances for more than three-and-a-half hours last month after falling seriously ill with the likes of hearts attacks, strokes and sepsis, according to NHS England.
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Downing Street, which has refused to call the situation in the NHS a crisis, said the figures are “obviously unacceptable” and the government was “very focused” on improving NHS performance.
But Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said the government “must carry the can” for excessive deaths caused by the problems highlighted in last month’s statistics.
She said: “The blame for this tragedy lies with years of underfunding and poor pay. It is a national disgrace delivered by Downing Street.
Extinction Rebellion UK dropped a large banner from Westminster Bridge in London that reads ‘APRIL 21: UNITE TO SURVIVE’. A group had marched with flags from Jubilee Gardens along Belvedere Road where they stood in single file off the road, forming a chain across the length of the bridge. When there, an important message was passed along a human chain from one side of the bridge to the other, symbolising connection across divides.
The action officially launches Extinction Rebellion’s ‘100 Days’ campaign – the biggest mobilisation campaign XR has ever undertaken. With it, a new Crowdfunder is set in motion with a £1million target by 21st April, 2023, when 100k are expected to stand together outside the Houses of Parliament.
Today marks the 100 day countdown to ‘The Big One’ on 21st April and is encouraging millions of conversations with friends, family, colleagues and strangers, as well as organisations across and beyond the environmental space, to bring 100k people to Westminster. With Extinction Rebellion’s official ‘ticker’ count revealed to show over 7,000 people ready to be there, this powerful targeted campaign aims to reach new audiences with an accessible, inclusive and easy-to-understand invitation to bring the remaining count into active resistance.
Anna Hyde of Extinction Rebellion UK, said: “The climate, ecological and biodiversity emergencies are not distant threats – they are happening right now, unevenly affecting many – ultimately affecting everyone, and life on Earth is at stake. Covered up by corrupt media, those in power continue to profit from the crises unravelling around us. The fossil fuel era must end, and restoration of the world must begin. This is where solidarity comes in.”
Following Extinction Rebellion’s New Year statement stating that we will “disrupt the abuse of power and imbalance” by targeting the true perpetrators, all signs at this chaotic time in history point toward cooperation between groups and movements taking our love and rage to the seat of power in Westminster. Horrified by the climate disasters unfolding around us, thousands in the UK are ready and waiting to do the work the government is unwilling to do.
Dr. Caroline Vincent of Scientists for XR, said: “Disruptive protest has done so much to change the conversation around the climate and ecological emergency over the last 4 years; more and more people are waking up to realities of the climate crisis, and more and more are saying they want immediate and decisive action.
“The reality is however, that as the general public becomes more concerned, the government in the UK backtracks on its already meagre climate promises, sanctioning a new coal mine in Cumbria at the end of 2022. So, the government isn’t listening and the only way that changes is by all of these newly concerned people recognising their own power and stepping into active resistance. At the same time, the Government is clamping down on the right to protest and criminalising those raising the alarm. In the current circumstances it’s clear that only larger numbers of people taking peaceful action together over prolonged periods will prove impossible to ignore.”
THOUSANDS of ambulance workers across England and Wales took strike action today in face of the “disheartening” and “demoralising” conditions in the NHS.
Up to 25,000 paramedics, call handlers, drivers and technicians from Unison and GMB took part in the action across 24 hours in a dispute with the government over pay.
Workers on the picket lines said it was the last place they wanted to be, describing regular hours-long waits to hand over patients from ambulances to the care of doctors and nurses.
Paramedic Jenny Giblin, on a picket line in Birkenhead, Wirral, with her 16-month-old son, said the situation had “definitely got worse” in her seven-year career.
She said: “Corridors are almost like wards. Sometimes you spend a whole shift on a corridor.
The government’s standoff with public sector workers has escalated with plans for a coordinated “day of action” by unions, who have reacted furiously to proposed legislation they say could let ministers in effect ban strikes in some areas.
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There is anger among unions about the new anti-strike bill, which will apply in England, Scotland and Wales, and which ministers hope will become law later this year.
Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the RMT rail union, called it “an attack on human rights and civil liberties which we will oppose in the courts, parliament and the workplace”, while Sharon Graham, the leader of Unite, called it “another dangerous gimmick from a government that should be negotiating to resolve the current crisis they have caused”.
Paul Nowak, the TUC’s general secretary, said on Tuesday that the proposed anti-strike legislation was “undemocratic, unworkable and almost certainly illegal” and was a “sack key-workers bill”.
Yet another promise shredded as Starmer maintains 100% weasel record
Starmer and a starving child
Keir Starmer has broken yet another promise – maintaining his perfect betrayal record – by abandoning his pledge to scrap the hateful and cruel Universal Credit system through which the Tories have inflicted years of misery and poverty on the UK’s lowest earning and most vulnerable.
Starmer’s Work and Pensions spokesman Jon Ashworth, challenged directly whether Starmer – who has already been mocked this week for claiming he will ‘renew’ the UK after thirteen years of Tory cuts without spending more – would honour his promise to scrap the system that has pushed huge numbers into abject poverty, responded that:
We’re going to reform universal credit … it’s a computer system. We’re not going to go back to the six different benefits that I think it brought together but we are going to reform it.
The lumping together of benefits that were previously tailored to the needs and circumstances of different types of claimant is one of the fundamentally damaging aspects of Universal Credit – and Labour had unequivocally promised to get rid of the whole system and ‘replace’ it with something fit for purpose, to show that ‘Labour is on the side of working people’, millions of whom rely on benefits to top up low pay they are forced to accept while employers fatten profits:
Starmer was asked this week by an interviewer what the point is of voting Labour when he will be no different to the Tories. If there is any difference, it’s an even lower level of trustworthiness. A Starmer promise is not fit to wipe your backside with.
