Seumas Milne's Blog, page 7
October 15, 2014
Public service strikers are standing up for the real Britain | Seumas Milne
After years of real pay cuts, public service workers are striking back. Up to a million public sector employees walked out in July in protest against continuous cuts in living standards. On Monday, hundreds of thousands of health service workers went on strike after the government refused them even a 1% pay award.
Midwives took action for the first time. On Wednesday, they were joined by low-paid workers from courts and job centres to airports and driving test centres some of whose take-home pay has fallen by 20%, courtesy of year-on-year wage freezes, pay caps and rising pension contributions.
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October 8, 2014
Europe’s sea of death for migrants is a result of war and escalating inequality | Seumas Milne
The Mediterranean has become Europe’s sea of death. More than 3,000 refugees and migrants have already been killed this year trying to escape war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East and break into the continental fortress to the north. That is more than four times 2013’s grim tally and makes up three quarters of a new annual global death toll of migrants. By any reckoning, this is a humanitarian disaster on Europe’s borders: the direct result of a system that favours the free movement of cheap European labour over providing refuge for victims of conflagration and destitution on our periphery.
These are the Syrians, Palestinians, Eritreans and Libyans, many of them children, driven into the hands of people traffickers to be drowned in overcrowded fishing boats, or sold to corrupt officials as European coastguards patrol off the sun-soaked beaches. Since the beginning of the century, more than 22,000 are estimated to have lost their lives trying to reach Europe. The annual cull reached a climax last month when a boat carrying refugees and migrants from Egypt to Malta was rammed and sunk by traffickers after those on board refused to transfer to a smaller vessel. Five hundred people died.
Continue reading...Europes sea of death for migrants is a result of war and escalating inequality | Seumas Milne
The Mediterranean has become Europes sea of death. More than 3,000 refugees and migrants have already been killed this year trying to escape war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East and break into the continental fortress to the north. That is more than four times 2013s grim tally and makes up three quarters of a new annual global death toll of migrants. By any reckoning, this is a humanitarian disaster on Europes borders: the direct result of a system that favours the free movement of cheap European labour over providing refuge for victims of conflagration and destitution on our periphery.
These are the Syrians, Palestinians, Eritreans and Libyans, many of them children, driven into the hands of people traffickers to be drowned in overcrowded fishing boats, or sold to corrupt officials as European coastguards patrol off the sun-soaked beaches. Since the beginning of the century, more than 22,000 are estimated to have lost their lives trying to reach Europe. The annual cull reached a climax last month when a boat carrying refugees and migrants from Egypt to Malta was rammed and sunk by traffickers after those on board refused to transfer to a smaller vessel. Five hundred people died.
Continue reading...October 3, 2014
During the miners’ strike, Thatcher’s secret state was the real enemy within | Seumas Milne
The Tory leader’s eagerness to brand not only miners’ leaders but the Labour party as enemies of democracy was a measure of her extremism and determination for class revenge
Thirty years ago, Margaret Thatcher branded striking miners “the enemy within”. The chilling catchphrase embodied her government’s scorched earth onslaught on Britain’s mining communities – and gave the green light for the entire state to treat the miners’ union as outlaws.
Now we know that the Tory prime minister intended to extend the charge of seditious insurrection, not only to leftwing Labour councils in Liverpool and London resisting cuts in services, but against the Labour party as a whole.
Continue reading...During the miners strike, Thatchers secret state was the real enemy within | Seumas Milne
The Tory leaders eagerness to brand not only miners leaders but the Labour party as enemies of democracy was a measure of her extremism and determination for class revenge
Thirty years ago, Margaret Thatcher branded striking miners the enemy within. The chilling catchphrase embodied her governments scorched earth onslaught on Britains mining communities and gave the green light for the entire state to treat the miners union as outlaws.
Now we know that the Tory prime minister intended to extend the charge of seditious insurrection, not only to leftwing Labour councils in Liverpool and London resisting cuts in services, but against the Labour party as a whole.
Continue reading...October 1, 2014
From Tory tax cuts to the war in Iraq, we’re lurching backwards | Seumas Milne
Cameron’s Conservatives are replaying Thatcher and Blair. But it’s a past we need to escape from
The Tories have always made a virtue out of being retro. “I am very proud of Nanny,” the fogey MP Jacob Rees-Mogg declared to an adoring crowd on Tuesday. But they have truly gone back to the future in Birmingham.
The spin has been that the Conservatives are now the party of “progress, compassion and social justice”. The unmistakable message of the conference, however, is that they are heading backwards on all fronts.
Continue reading...From Tory tax cuts to the war in Iraq, were lurching backwards | Seumas Milne
Camerons Conservatives are replaying Thatcher and Blair. But its a past we need to escape from
The Tories have always made a virtue out of being retro. I am very proud of Nanny, the fogey MP Jacob Rees-Mogg declared to an adoring crowd on Tuesday. But they have truly gone back to the future in Birmingham.
The spin has been that the Conservatives are now the party of progress, compassion and social justice. The unmistakable message of the conference, however, is that they are heading backwards on all fronts.
Continue reading...September 24, 2014
Austerity has failed, and it isnt only Labours core voters who want change | Seumas Milne
If youre in a fix, create a diversion. That will be the watchword of David Camerons Tories next week. George Osborne may have presided over the weakest recovery on record. He may have spectacularly missed his fiscal targets. The deficit may be growing again. Real wages may have fallen for the longest period since the 1870s. But Ed Miliband will certainly be the man in the frame at their Birmingham jamboree.
The Labour leader even forgot to mention the deficit in his conference speech, the Conservatives will hoot tax cuts at the ready so Labour cant be trusted with the nations finances. And fresh from bringing Britain to the brink of breakup, Cameron will play the English nationalist card as his winning ace. Miliband isnt quite one of us, the dog whistle will have it.
Continue reading...Austerity has failed, and it isn’t only Labour’s core voters who want change | Seumas Milne
After Scotland, the need for Ed Miliband to make the case for radical reform couldn’t be clearer
If you’re in a fix, create a diversion. That will be the watchword of David Cameron’s Tories next week. George Osborne may have presided over the weakest recovery on record. He may have spectacularly missed his fiscal targets. The deficit may be growing again. Real wages may have fallen for the longest period since the 1870s. But Ed Miliband will certainly be the man in the frame at their Birmingham jamboree.
The Labour leader even forgot to mention the deficit in his conference speech, the Conservatives will hoot – tax cuts at the ready – so Labour can’t be trusted with the nation’s finances. And fresh from bringing Britain to the brink of breakup, Cameron will play the English nationalist card as his winning ace. Miliband isn’t quite one of us, the dog whistle will have it.
Continue reading...September 17, 2014
Another western war won’t end terror in Iraq or Syria. It will only spread it | Seumas Milne
Barely a month into the latest American bombing campaign in Iraq, and they’re already talking escalation. Last week Barack Obama promised that his plans to destroy the so-called Islamic State (Isis) would “not involve American combat troops”. This week General Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said that’s exactly what he would be “recommending” if air power didn’t work.
If “work” means destroy Isis’s grip on western Iraq and eastern Syria, it won’t. So expect the new war that Chuck Hagel, the US defence secretary, says will last several years to ramp up in the months ahead. Yesterday Obama stuck to his formula. But there are already 1,600 US military “advisers” on the ground. Special forces will no doubt be back in serious numbers before long.
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