As the Liberal Democrats prepare to hold their annual UK conference in Glasgow, a mass protest against the hated Bedroom Tax plans to greet them.
In this issue, the Scottish Socialist Party’s Campbell Martin points out that in North Ayrshire alone, some 1,765 tenants facing higher rent charges – because they’re deemed to have a “spare room”
In this issue, SSP workplace organiser Richie Venton looks at zero hours contracts, which perfectly encapsulate the disgustingly exploitative system we live under. Far from being on the margins of the labour market, zero hours contracts are mushrooming, encouraged by the employers’ organisations and the mainstream pro-capitalist political parties.
In this issue we look at the ‘Wonga vs The Bishop’ loans row. Rather than scrapping over how much a loan should cost, the real debate should centre on why thousands of people have to survive each month on pay cheques that only last two weeks, filling the gap with loans.
Inside this issue of the Voice, we look at the impact of cuts at home and abroad, on the future of the Tory-led Westminster coalition and its survival prospects.
In issue #418, the Radical Independence Campaign’s Liam O’Hare, Voice editor Ken Ferguson and author Alan Bissett look at Nigel Farage’s ridiculous decision to launch UKIP’s Aberdeen Donside by-election from the centre of Edinburgh, and Richie Venton looks at how we can fight the Tories’ hated Bedroom Tax, as demands for these extra payments from the most vulnerable – dreamt up by Westminster cabinet multi-millionaires – start hitting home.
Welcome to Scottish Socialist Voice issue 417, in this edition we have the latest news from the Yes to Independence campaign trail.
by Sandra Webster
With the media’s attention on the death of Thatcher, it was a good time to bury bad news. This included the latest in a number of benefit reforms which are designed to pave the way to Universal Credit.
A benefit cap of £500 has been introduced as a pilot as in four London boroughs of Bromley, Croydon Enfield and Haringey. From July to September the cap will be rolled out to all of London.
Using their usual “divide and conquer” techniques, the ConDems claim that those not in work should not earn more than those who are. The figures for them mean £350 for a single person and £500 for a family with any amount of children.
by Richie Venton
With 630,000 members, the Scottish trade union movement makes up a huge slice of the population, both when it comes to fighting attacks on our lives and conditions right now, and in shaping Scotland’s future.
So it’s encouraging that the recent STUC conference in Perth agreed a whole raft of progressive policies which, if implemented, would offer stiff resistance to the plunder of our communities by Westminster, and help shape a fairer, less unequal and more secure future for the next generation.
But this also raises the issue of where the unions stand on the Referendum – an issue which the same conference smothered in fudge.
One of the central battles facing workers and their communities is the mind-boggling savagery of cuts to jobs,