British students demonstrate against the draconian cutbacks in education funding. The world crisis of capitalism has impacted the entire globe and is worsening despite false reports of a recovery. a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
The New Worker
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 11th March 2011
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Desperate Dave
PRIME MINISTER David Cameron last weekend told his party’s spring conference that, with no money left in Government coffers, “the only strategy for growth” is to get behind entrepreneurs.
He then launched into a tirade against civil servants and local government officers who do their best to enforce various rules and regulations and declared them “the enemies of enterprise”. He promised that in the coming budget: “We are taking on the enemies of enterprise: the bureaucrats in Government departments who concoct those ridiculous rules and regulations that make life impossible for small firms. The town hall officials who take forever to make those planning decisions that can be make or break for a business — and the investment and jobs that go with it.”
He is calling for totally unrestricted capitalism, with no health and safety laws, no planning laws, no environmental protection, no worker protection — just unrestricted greed for profit — the sort of unregulated mess that allowed the banking sector to almost destroy itself a couple of years ago.
Like his friends the bankers he is one of the school of positive thinkers who imagine they can act as recklessly as they like but nothing bad will ever happen “because that is negative thinking”. But now he is staring into an abyss with the economy about to go into freefall.
His massive cuts are increasing unemployment and so increasing the total benefits bill; soon there will be an army of angry unemployed, homeless and destitute on the streets. Already the levels of protests are way above what he expected.
The cuts he has inflicted on the poor, the disabled and the disadvantaged are cruel and callous and ideologically driven. But in the process he has further damaged the economy by actually increasing the benefits bill and reduced the spending power of 90 per cent of the population.
Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, is predicting a new credit crunch; the City and the CBI are demanding tax cuts Cameron cannot afford and threatening to walk out on him. Advertising tycoon Sir Martin Sorrell has described Britain as a “Third Division” economy.
All Cameron can do is plead for capitalism to invest in Britain and is promising to abandon all restrictions for them. But they still won’t come.
There is no money to be made here from a population that is being impoverished but is becoming angry and politicised.
His coalition with the Liberal Democrats is also starting to fall apart, especially after they were beaten into sixth place in the Barnsley by-election, behind Ukip and the British National Party.
And the Lib Dems are showing they are no wiser. They are backing a plan concocted by former bankers and hedge fund managers to distribute shares in the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds — which were bailed out by taxpayers two years ago and are now owned by the Government — free to the general public. They would be restricted from selling them until they rose above the level at which they were bought (75p for RBS and 110p for Lloyds).
But that assumes the value will rise, when all economic forecasts predict another banking collapse soon. Together, the shares could bean asset for the Government to steer those banks and perhaps even salvage some of what was paid for the taxpayers. Fragmented and falling, they will be useless to anyone.
A survey published in the Independent last Thursday showed that half of Cameron’s own party oppose his “Big Society” flagship policy.
After being propelled into the heights of political power in Britain on hot air and positive thinking, Cameron suddenly finds he is way out of his depth and has not a clue what to do and his sidekick Clegg is just as useless.
Cameron’s pathetic attempt to make an international name for himself by making a covert quasi military intervention in Libya turned into a farce and was quashed by the very people he hoped to support.
Cameron and Clegg must go, for everyone’s sake and the broad-based campaign that is building up behind the 26th March TUC demonstration must take this as its primary aim and continue to fight until it happens.
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The New Worker
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 11th March 2011
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Rented homes dangerous
by Daphne Liddle
AROUND one million private rented homes in Britain are in such a poor state they are dangerous according to a survey published last week by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH).
The CIEH has warned the number of dangerously substandard privately rented homes is set to rise, citing a lack of social housing, and cuts to housing benefit and legal aid.
Councils say they are doing what they can to tackle the problem but argue clear, workable legislation is needed. But they increasingly have to direct people into the private rented sector in order to bring down waiting lists for social housing.
The Government claims that more red tape would harm tenants’ interests. Local authorities in England have said their hands are tied because proposals they thought were going to help the situation — such as a national landlords’ register — have been scrapped by the coalition government.
The CIEH said unscrupulous landlords were exploiting the lack of rented accommodation, and there were fears that cuts in housing benefit could make the situation worse and force tenants to live in unsafe buildings, often with exposed electrics, mould and damp.
Government figures show 1.5 million — nearly half of all privately rented homes in England — were substandard, with one million classified as dangerous to live in.
Meanwhile in Scotland there is landlord registration, designed to help councils monitor private landlords. And the Welsh Assembly has powers over housing through the Local Government and Housing Legislative Competence Order.
The number of people renting a home has soared by 40 per cent during the past five years as low levels of house building and the mortgage drought have prevented potential buyers from getting on to the property ladder.
About 3.4 million households were living in privately rented accommodation during 2009/10, up from 2.4 million in 2005, according to the English Housing Survey.
Campbell Robb, chief executive of housing charity Shelter, said: “With a chronic shortage of social housing and millions priced out of the housing market, the reality is that renting is fast becoming the only option for more and more people.
“Yet despite increasing numbers of families being forced to rent their homes, the sector continues to have the worst standards of any type of housing.
“We are extremely concerned that the huge influx of people into rented accommodation could lead to an imbalance between supply and demand for properties, with the most vulnerable tenants having no other choice but to rent from landlords with a bad reputation.”
The survey also showed that people renting social housing paid an average of £75 in rent a week, less than half the £153 paid by people in the private rented sector in 2009/2010.
The Con-Dem Coalition cut the housing budget by 50 per cent last October. And figures last month revealed the number of new homes completed in England last year was 102,570 — the lowest level since 1923 and down 13 per cent on 2009.
Stephen Battersby of the CIEH said that improving substandard private rented housing could boost public health and wellbeing and reduce the strain on the NHS.
He said: “Poor housing conditions are putting the health and wellbeing of millions of people in this country at risk. What makes this situation even more worrying is local authorities are cutting budgets leading to reduced financial assistance (grants or loans) for maintenance and repairs and low levels of enforcement action against neglectful landlords.
“This affects some of the most vulnerable people in the community, such as the old and people on low incomes: those least able to fight for a better deal. Poor housing is a major cause of ill health in the UK. This country’s statistics on excess winter deaths and falls compare poorly with many of our European partners.”
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