Visit: wwwVisit: wwwVisit: wwwVisit: www.socialistresistance.org .socialistresistance.org .socialistresistance.org .socialistresistance.org ¦¦¦¦ Email: Email: Email: Email: contactcontactcontactcontact@socialistresistance.org@socialistresistance.org@socialistresistance.org@socialistresistance.org

SocialistSocialistSocialistSocialist ResistanceResistanceResistanceResistance The Fourth International in BritainThe Fourth International in BritainThe Fourth International in BritainThe Fourth International in Britain

he Con Dems are hell-bent

on a recession that will

throw the economy into a

double dip recession.

The cuts that are planned for public

services are substantial and the only

people seeing their salaries increase

are the bankers with their multi-

million pounds bonuses. Yet we’re

being asked to pay for their crisis at

the very moment they want to

destroy what remains of the Welfare

State.

The Con Dem budget made clear

that a hefty £11 billion is to be cut

from benefit payments by changing

the inflation index used for uprating

payments year by year. The very

poorest and especially women are to

be made even poorer.

On top of this we already know that

housing benefit for long-term

claimants is to be cut by 10% from

2013 – with no idea of where the

gap in payments is to be found.

2.4 million people on disability

benefit are being forced to go

through a brutally biased

reassessment process, in which up

to three quarters are being assessed

as ‘fit for work’ and likely to lose

benefit – despite the lack of any

suitable job vacancies for them to

fill even if they were fit enough.

Single parents are also targeted for

mean-spirited cuts, with 135,000 to

be moved from social security to

Job Seekers Allowance: by 2012

single mums with children as young

as 5 will be compelled to seek work.

Work and Pensions minister Chris

Grayling is on record as favouring a

vicious Dickensian tariff of

penalties for any JSA claimant

turning down a job, in which one

refusal would result in one month’s

loss of benefit, two jobs refused

would trigger a 3-month suspension

of benefits and three refusals would

result in a 3-year exclusion from all

state benefits.

This press-gang approach gives the

green light to the most unscrupulous

and exploitative employers to keep

wages at rock-bottom: but even on

these terms it seems certain that

vacancies will remain thin on the

ground, as tens of thousands of

public sector workers lose their jobs

in the cutbacks that are being driven

through in the NHS, local

government, civil service, and even

in the police force by ConDem

spending cuts.

T

Con Dems are lying about cuts!Con Dems are lying about cuts!Con Dems are lying about cuts!Con Dems are lying about cuts! There’s an ecosocialist alternative

Visit: wwwVisit: wwwVisit: wwwVisit: www.socialistresistance.org .socialistresistance.org .socialistresistance.org .socialistresistance.org ¦¦¦¦ Email: Email: Email: Email: contactcontactcontactcontact@socialistresistance.org@socialistresistance.org@socialistresistance.org@socialistresistance.org

There has to be an alternative

that meets the needs of working

people and at the same time

challenges the system that is

causing catostrophic climate

change.

Let’s begin by taxing the people

responsible for this mess. If we up

income tax to 90 or 95% on salaries

above £80,000 a year it would only

affect 2% of full time employees.

Even a tax rate of 50% on incomes

above £100,000 would raise £4.7bn.

A massive £100 billion goes

uncollected from big business and

the very wealthy in tax avoidance.

This is where the money should

come from to pay off the debt.

Getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan

and not replacing Trident would

save £80bn.

We need to create labour intensive

jobs in the public sector. These

would be socially useful jobs in

healtg, education, public transport

and building good quality,

environentally sustainable homes

for working class people.

More than anything else it is

capitalism’s need to create profit

that is contributing to climate

change. Carbon is extracted from

the ground to be pumped into the

atmosphere where it traps heat. The

energy oil, coal and gas produce is

used to create commodities, of

which 40% end up in landfill sites

within a year.

An economy which aims to prevent

climate change cannot co-exist with

production for profit. A sustainable

society is one in which tens of

millions of people understand that

“enough” is preferable to “more”.

We can achieve this with very little

impact on working people’s lives by

re-distributing wealth and goods so

that we live in a more equal country

and a more equal planet. In the

jargon of economists we are aiming

for a “zero growth” economy which

puts human needs before profit.

Rather than cut jobs we say cut

working hours. In Britain we have

some of the longest working hours

in Europe. If Cameron and Clegg

are serious about their “big society”

let working men and women have

the free time to spend with their

families and to get involved in their

communites. They won’t because

they want to use mass

unemployment to drive down wages

and intimidate those of us still in

work.

We can create 100,000 construction

jobs by spending £25 billion on

schools, homes and hospitals.

Another £25 billion spent on green

energy could create up to one

million jobs and we’d still have £25

billion left over to spend on

pensions moving Britain’s

pensioners from the third worst off

in Europe to among the most

comfortable.

And to stop this mess happening

again we have to nationalise the

banks, taking them out of the hands

of spivs and gamblers and putting

them under democratic control.