Which is why the media keep going after it all the time. I thought that the NHS was bad, which is obviously is, but I dread to think what'll happen when they do it to the police and armed services. The whole thing would've sounded ridiculous a decade or two ago, but it's becoming a horrifying reality. Forgot to mention the attempts to target the internet and effectively censor it. Can't have any alternative to the crap being peddled by the media.
I don't know. My hope is that Corbyn gets elected and the Labour party force the issue by exposing the profiteering ethos which has become the status quo and runs roughshod over the ordinary working person's rights, people wake up and reject the placating and apologetic nonsense that the media try to peddle about the need for the banks to make obscene profit and for the private sector to run the NHS etc. But all the while you have people like Murdoch around, then the power of the media to ridicule anything that doesn't support the relentless capitalist drive will remain, the worrying thing is that the Tories have the BBC in their sights next, and whilst they basically toe the line, they do at least offer some intelligent and open debate and ask awkward questions. Once that is squashed, there's very little to oppose it other than small independent and largely disparate media outlets.
I have to say - all these comments I'm seeing on Facebook attacking the tube drivers for striking is very concerning. Apparently getting paid a decent salary doesn't entitle you to have a work/life balance. The point about the strikes aren't even pay related. Besides, what's the point of earning this money if there's no-one/nothing you can spend it on?
Also - why should you be forced to work shifts that weren't even originally in the terms of your contract? Regardless of what someone is getting paid, it doesn't mean that the employer should control everything that you do even if it's unreasonable. I think there's a word for that...
Couldnt agree more. And of course there are jobs which require this type of work pattern but these jobs are ones people apply for, not terms people are forced to accept by a drastic change in their work pattern.
Good point. Also, I'd just like to add that most of the people striking aren't even tube drivers, it's the station staff. If TfL aren't going to play ball, what other option is there left? This notion that it's all about earning more money and being greedy was a smokescreen TfL conjured up to demonise the unions rather than focus on the real issue at hand here. And people lap it all up . People seem to always take a short term view of things.
This is happening across both public and private sector. Up until recently I worked for the NHS, I had done since 1999. For the last four years my pay had been frozen (effectively a pay cut alongside inflation and the rise in the cost of living) and in the same time I saw my budget slashed for the services I was providing and commissioners encouraged to give contracts to private companies instead of to the NHS (best value is the buzz term, on the cheap is the reality). I was also effectively forced to take on the work of 4 people as management cuts were made and 'restructuring' was implemented. So that's the same wage, frozen since 2011 for doing the work equivalent of four wages. The attitude of senior management in the NHS is purely bottom line driven. They are businessmen and businesswomen. Not clinical managers. The NHS is being dismantled and sold off to the 'free market' at huge profit. It's simply another case of a national industry like rail, post office, telecoms etc that taxpayers paid for, being carved up and sold off for rich speculators.
I've heard so many stories like this and I still can't fathom why the Tories got re-elected. 24% of the population votes for them and they get a majority government. As you say, privatising Royal Mail, NHS etc. Let's not forget; cutting inheritance tax and corporation tax, an increase in temporary employment/zero hour contracts, benefits getting slashed, significantly raising tuition fees, eradicating grants for loans, trying to limit Unions' influence, inflating house prices, doing nothing to prevent people using tax havens whilst raising their own salaries...
Cutting inheritance tax is a good thing. Taxing someone for dying, on assets and money they've been taxed there whole lives collecting, is just wrong.
Exactly the same in the welsh government piskie - departments and teams have shrunk drastically, with staff doing the work of 2, 3 or 4 people while having a 5 year pay freeze (so pay cut after inflation) and more cuts promised to come. Though thankfully the welsh assembly is stsnding up to the Tories as much as possible and are giving us a small payrise this year, which will probably keep us going until the next election. But the worst thing is seeing how the services we offer to the public, the vulnerable and businesses are being drastically cut. Its even worse in local government.
Cutting inheritance tax at the same time as cutting billions of welfare support and supporting the increase in private rents (leading to a housing crisis) is shocking as it mainly punishes the poor and vulnerable while benefiting the rich (who will inherit significantly more than the poor or working class). It, together with the continued deregulation if the financial (and media) sectors, increased tuition fees, decreased social housing and the cutting in mansion tax and top rate tax means a continued attack on the poor for the benefit of the rich. They are also decreasing social mobility so inequality increases and the poor stay poorer and the rich become richer. How is that fair? Especially with increased privitisation of the nhs and the desire to sign a ttip agreement. This will condem whole generations to poverty and huge social problems
How is it fair for someone to work there entire life being taxed along the way to try and leave something to there kids but then be taxed on that? Particularly when the threshold prior to these changes was set at a level that meant often people having to sell family homes etc to afford the tax. Regardless of whatever is going on in the country I think it is wrong to tax someone for dying. The mansion tax was a stupid idea too. Taxing people for living in a nice house?
Tony Blair has just come out and said that if Labour vote for Corbyn it will 'annihilate' the party. (This is the same Blair who nearly bankrupted the party in 1995). If anything this gives me even more incentive to vote for Corbyn knowing that the Tories wearing the red rose as running scared of him. The govt has shifted so far to the right recently that labour need a big slap around the face and a shift to the left, back to heir core values of social justice. Even though I've left the NHS, I'm still an affiliated member by being member of UNISON. I Fully intend to use my vote for Corbyn. I hope it shakes the Labour Party up and a few of the Tories in sheep's clothing coming falling out of the bottom.
Thats what a lot of people are saying lol. They are thanking Alistair Campbell for telling people not to vote for corbyn as it means more people will vote for corbyn, such is the opinion of Blair, Campbell and all the test of their cronies! Lol
I dont understand this, how are you saying its punishing people for working their entire life? Lots of millionaires have never worked and have inherited their wealth and will pass it onto their kids. My parents have worked bloody hard their entire life but i doubt ill inherite huge amounts. Also how would you need to sell your house to afford to pay the inheritance tax? This would indicate that the tax was vastly more than the amount inherited! Also why do you think its fairer to attack people to poverty and in some cases starvation or relying on food banks as they cant afford to eat - or in the case of the Atos work assessments - suicides, instead of asking someone who has just inherited a significant amount of money to pay a little bit more?
The labour membership has rocketed from around 220,000 to over 680,000 since Corbyn stood for election.
