NHS Privatisation Explained A Video By The Save Lewisham Hospital campaign

Americans spend over $4,000 more on profit driven healthcare than Brits do on their NHS. For that extra money, they have a lower life expectancy, a higher infant mortality, have less practising physicians, leave 50 million people uninsured, leave tens of millions underinsured, and make health bills the top reason for bankruptcy and homelessness.

Every pound put into profit is a pound taken from care. Privatisation doesn’t work. It’s time to nationalise everything, and for councils of workers, and stake holders to democratically run our industries and services.

So check this video The VOAG stumbled upon, exposing the government lies regarding the NHS.

 Lords and MPs financial interests in private healthcare: http://socialinvestigations.blogspot….

Demonstration in Farnham Against Geremy Hunt, Health Secretary And His NHS Cuts. June 15th

AN UPDATE: JOIN THE HUNT FOR HUNT! 
The NHS is under attack!

Up to 100 jobs cuts are planned at Royal Surrey Hospital including front line staff. There are also planned cuts to Epsom and St Helier hospitals.

Since taking over as secretary of state for health, Jeremy Hunt has lost 7,000 nurses, handed billions of our health pounds to his private sector friends, ‘downgraded’ a very successful London hospital and has kept out of sight as other hospitals and NHS services close units and sell off services. 

WE MUST FIGHT THIS!
Together, communities can stop our services from being broken up. The NHS belongs to all of us. Join the campaign, make sure it stays that way!  As many of you will know Unite, together with the Save Lewisham Hospital  Campaign, are planning a search in Surrey South West for local MP and Secretary of State for health Jeremy Hunt which is leading the against on the NHS.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN:
Meeting Place: The Hart Road, opposite, Waitrose Car Park,Farnham at 12:15- 12:30.
There we will split up into those who wish to leaflet and petition in the town centre and those who wish to canvass door to door and get petitions signed. Street theatre is being arranged to draw attention. Kids packs and balloons are being arranged to provide a family friendly environment. The two groups will reassemble at 3 pm for a short march and rally outside Conservative Association Offices.

Coaches are leaving from Lewisham, Whittington, Hammersmith, Charing Cross, Kingston and St Helier Hospital Campaigns. Seat reservations are available by calling 07846008703

FOR MORE INFO:
http://www.unitetheunion.org/campaigning/events/huntthehuntandsaveournhs/
http://www.savelewishamhospital.com/the-hunt-for-hunt/

OR JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP:
https://www.facebook.com/events/500290676696673/pr

EMAIL:
saveournhs@unitetheunion.org

The Crimes Of Jeremy Hunt – Criminal And Social Saboteur

The Crimes Of Jeremy Hunt  – Criminal & Social Saboteur 

Jeremy Hunt and The Murdoch Scandal
As Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt hid an Ofcom report recommending that Murdoch’s £7.5bn takeover of BSkyB be referred to the monopolies commission. Following an investigation by MP Tom Watson, Hunt was later found to have misled parliament when he denied having formal meetings with Murdoch’s News Corp executives.

Later In 2010, ‘The Hunt’ managed to wriggle out of trouble again when it was found that he failed to declare thousands of pounds of donations from BskyB, media and arts companies the previous year.

The ‘Hunt’ faced demands for his resignation in 2012, when documents submitted to the Levingson enquiry in to telephone hacking, revealed that his office was secretly passing information to Murdoch during his bid to take over BskyB.  It was described by one MP as “a strait forward criminal offence”.

Jeremy Hunt and The Abortion Debate
After only a month as Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt told the Times in October 2012 that he backs halving the legal time limit for women to have abortions, from 24 weeks to 12. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said it was “insulting to women” and they were “speechless”.

Selling the NHS – The Crime Of The Century
The Hunt’s views on the NHS were exposed  in the Guardian last September, when it reported that Hunt attempted to have scenes celebrating the National Health Service removed from the Olympics opening ceremony. MP Andy Burnham told the commons “it proved Hunt didn’t support the core values of the NHS”. In the run up to privatisation, hospitals across the country have already been forced to save £20bn.

Jeremy Hunt’s Health and Social Care Act is set to reorganise the NHS so that it is little more than a logo on contracted out services. The regulations – made under Section 75 of the Health & Social Care Act 2012 – puts competition at the heart of the NHS and brings in privatisation on an unprecedented scale. Regulations will force commissioners to open up to private sector competition any part of the NHS that companies are interested in.

Local health decision makers will be able to do little or nothing to protect local NHS hospitals which will be starved of funds as a result of losing out to private providers. The regulations require all NHS services to be put out to competition “unless the commissioners can prove there is only one provider”.

Lord Philip Hunt, in the House of Lords said: “Parliament was assured that clinicians would be under no legal obligation to create new markets; however these regulations being debated in Parliament provide no such re-assurance”.

Clare Gerada, Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said recently: “The NHS has delivered what no other health service has managed: universal, accessible, high quality care at a cost far less than comparable health services. These regulations remove the legal framework for a universal, publically provided and managed, democratically accountable health service.”

Crimes Against Surrey
Meanwhile here in Surrey two hospitals out of four are set to close their A&E and maternity departments. The Sutton Guardian reported in January that either St Helier, Epsom, Kingston or Croydon University Hospital will lose key departments. Kingston has already seen A&E waiting times increase following spending cuts last year, the Surrey Comet reported in February.

Lewisham Hospital, a hospital that makes a surplus is to Cut A&E, maternity, children’s and intensive care services. Patients will have to be transported to other hospitals because there will no longer be acute provision

The Surrey Advertiser reported in February that although the hospital was not in debt and had been making a surplus over the last few years, “a 100 jobs are about to go at the Royal Surrey Hospital”.  Who remembers the facical 2005 general election? When Ann Milton, our local MP stood as “Conservatives: Stop The Hospital Cuts”. One wonders where she is now.

Jeremy Hunt has nothing but contempt for us all – even fellow Tories. It was reported that he endorsed Conservative co-chairman Lord Feldman’s characterisation of Tory ‘grass roots’ activists as “Swivel-eyed loons”, describing Lord Feldman as a man of great honour.

Even on the roads Hunt thinks there’s one rule for us and another rule for him. As the Daily Mail found when it snapped Hunt riding through red lights and one way streets last year.

On Friday 24^th May, The VOAG, together with the Surrey United Anti-Capitalists and the Kingston branch of the GMB union, hunted “the Hunt” down at Surrey University. He was there to deliver a speech to students. Unfortunately for him, the welcome he received was not quite the one he had expected. More people came to protest than came to hear his bull-shit.

Friday’s Hunt the Hunt was just a warm up for the main event. On Saturday June 15^th, we’ll be hunting the Hunt again, this time in Farnham, his own constituency. There are coaches arranged from London. Hospital campaigns at Ealing, Hammersmith & Charing Cross, Kingston, and Whittington hospitals are all arranging coaches. Campaigners from Hackney, King George and Central Middlesex will also be attending the event, together with campaigners from around Surrey and Hampshire. Join the Facebook event page for more info and details: https://www.facebook.com/events/500290676696673/. 

Call 07846008703 or email: huntforhunt2013@gmail.com

The VOAG looks back to the Battle Of The Beanfield: 27 Years On

The Battle Of The Beanfield: 27 Years On 

June 1, 2012
Today year marks the 27th anniversary of the infamous police attack on travellers on their way to Stonehenge in an incident now known as the Battle Of The Beanfield.

“What I have seen in the last thirty minutes here in this field has been some of the most brutal police treatment of people that I’ve witnessed in my entire career as a journalist. The number of people who have been hit by policemen, who have been clubbed whilst holding babies in their arms in coaches around this field, is yet to be counted. There must surely be an enquiry after what has happened today.”-Ken Sabido, ITN journalist. 

Twenty four years have passed since the defining moment of the Thatcher government’s assault on the traveller movement – the Battle of the Beanfield. On June 1st 1985 a convoy of vehicles set off from Savernake Forest in Wiltshire towards Stonehenge, with several hundred travellers on their way to setting up the 14th Stonehenge Free Festival. But this year English Heritage, who laughably were legally considered the owners of the Stonehenge Sarsen circle (built several thousand years before by god knows who), had secured an injunction against trespass naming 83 people. This was considered legal justification enough for a brutal assault on the entire convoy. What followed was a police riot and the largest mass arrest in British history.As the Convoy made its way to the Stones the road was blocked with tonnes of gravel and it was diverted down a narrow country lane, which was also blocked. Suddenly a group of police officers came forward and started to break vehicle windows with their truncheons. Trapped, the convoy swung into a field, crashing through a hedge.

For the next four hours there was an ugly stalemate. The Convoy started trying to negotiate, offering to abandon the festival and return to Savernake Forest or leave Wiltshire altogether. The police refused to negotiate and told them they could all surrender or face the consequences.At ten past seven the ‘battle’ began. In the next half hour, the police operation “became a chaotic whirl of violence.” Convoy member Phil Shakesby later gave his account of the day: “The police came in [to the grass field] and they were battering people where they stood, smashing homes up where they were, just going wild. Maybe about two-thirds of the vehicles actually started moving and took off, and they chased us into a field of beans. 

By this time there were police everywhere, charging along the side of us, and wherever you went there was a strong police presence. Well, they came in with all kinds of things: fire extinguishers and one thing and another. When they’d done throwing the fire extinguishers at us, they were stoning us with these lumps of flint.”By the end of the day over four hundred were under arrest and dispersed across police stations around the whole of the south of England. Their homes had been destroyed, impounded and in some cases torched.

THE VAN GUARD?
In today’s surveillance society Britain it is seems inconceivable that festivals like the Stonehenge Free Festival ever happened. At their height these gatherings attracted 30,000 people for the solstice celebration – 30,000 people celebrating and getting on with it without any need for the state or its institutions. The festivals themselves were just the highpoint of a year-round lifestyle of living in vehicles. As one traveller said at the time, “The number of people who were living on buses had been doubling every year for four years. It was anarchy in action, and it was seen to be working by so many people that they wanted to be a part of it too.”Having seen off the miners strike – the first casualties in the plan to re-order Britain according to neo-liberal economics (or as it was known locally – Thatcherism), the state turned its force on a more subtle threat. This time not people fighting for jobs and a secure place in the system but people who rejected that system outright. Although prejudice against travellers was nothing new, the traditional ‘ethnic’ travelling minority represented no significant threat to the status quo that couldn’t be dealt with by local authorities. But to many of the millions left unemployed by the Thatcher revolution, life on the road looked increasingly appealing. This was inconvenient for a state determined that conditions for the unemployed be miserable enough to spur them into any form of low-paid work.

WHEELS ON FIRE
The propaganda directed against the so-called ‘peace convoys’ by all sections of the media created an atmosphere which allowed draconian action. The Beanfield was not an isolated incident. The Nostell Priory busts of the previous year were a vicious foreboding of what was to come. Months before the Beanfield a convoy-peace camp site at Molesworth was evicted by police acting with 1500 troops and bulldozers headed by a flak-jacketed Michael Heseltine, then Defence Secretary. In 1986 Stoney Cross in the New Forest saw another mass eviction. At the time Thatcher said she was “only too delighted to do what we can to make things difficult for such things as hippy convoys”. This attempt to create a separate yet peaceful existence from mainstream society was to be ruthlessly suppressed.Over the next ten years – notably with the Public Order Act 1986 and the Criminal Justice Act 1994 the whole lifestyle was virtually outlawed. As John Major said at the Tory Party conference in 1992 to thunderous applause: “New age travellers – not in this age – not in any age”. The CJA removed the duty of councils to provide stop-over sites for travellers and regular evictions began to punctuate traveller life. But it wasn’t all one way, thousands stayed on the road and the free festival circuit was infused with fresh blood from the rave scene. Even after the massive crackdown that followed the Castlemorton free festival the convoys in many cases moved onto road protest sites.

Ultimately however travellers were forced to adapt – abandoning the garish war paint of the hippy convoys for more anonymous vans, moving and taking sites in smaller groups. Many went abroad or were driven back into the cities. However, despite the worst excesses of the cultural clampdown, travellers remain all over the country. Many are now in smaller groups, inconspicuous and unregistered. It’s become more common for vehicle dwellers to take dis-used industrial sites blurring then lines between travelling and squatting. 

The fact that Stonehenge is now open again on the solstice might – on the face of it – look like a victory. But the event is a top-down affair complete with massive police presence, burger vans and floodlights – a far cry from the anarchistic experiments of the 70s and 80s. A smaller gathering had been permitted just down the road at the Avebury stone circle over recent years with the National Trust taking a far more lenient stance on live-in vehicles than English Heritage. But even there, since 2007, there’s now a ban on overnight stays on the solstice. 

Much of the festival circuit these days is in the hands of profit-motivated commercial promoters apart from the growing shoots of a range of smaller festivals, who continue in the spirit of people-led celebrations of community co-operation. But festivals today are also mostly buried under an avalanche of red tape and security, health and safety requirements – The Big Green gathering saw its security costs treble in one year (2007) as they were told to ‘terrorist harden’ the event.

When popular history recalls the pivotal moments in the mid-80s for Thatcher’s Britain, the Battle Of The Beanfield rarely adequately takes its place alongside the Miners Strike and Wapping. For UK Plc, travellers became – and remain – another ‘enemy within’, to be dealt with by organised state violence, like all others who have found an escape route from a society subordinated to profit, where freedom had been reduced to a series of consumer choices.

* For the definitive account see Andy Worthington’s book ‘The Battle Of The Beanfield’ – www.andyworthington.co.uk

World’s richest woman says poor should have less fun, work harder

David Lazarus, Los Angeles Times, August 30, 2012
Just in case you were beginning to think rich people were deeply misunderstood and that they feel the pain of those who are less fortunate, here’s the world’s wealthiest woman, Australian mining tycoon Gina Rinehart, with some helpful advice.

“If you’re jealous of those with more money, don’t just sit there and complain,” she said in a magazine piece. “Do something to make more money yourself – spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working.”

Gina Rinehart, the world’s richest woman, says people who are jealous of the wealthy should work harder. (Twitter / August 30, 2012)

Yeah, let them eat cake.
Rinehart made her money the old-fashioned way: She inherited it. Her family iron ore prospecting fortune of $30.1 billion makes her Australia’s wealthiest person and the richest woman on the planet. “There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire,” she said by way of encouragement. “Become one of those people who work hard, invest and build, and at the same time create employment and opportunities for others.”

Boom. Almost too easy.
Why are people poor? Rinehart blamed what she described as “socialist,” anti-business government policies, and urged Australian officials to lower the minimum wage and cut taxes. “The millionaires and billionaires who choose to invest in Australia are actually those who most help the poor and our young,” she said. “This secret needs to be spread widely.”
And now it’s out there. Thank you, rich people. We’re not worthy.

Workers Power Conference 2012: Divisions, Expulsions, Appeals And Split – The VOAG Investigates.

Workers Power Conference 2012: Divisions, Expulsions, & Appeals – The VOAG Investigates. 

Workers Power, a small communist group had its conference over the weekend. The conference was dominated be factionalism and division. Two people were expelled, and although as yet there have been no formal splits, resignations from the National and Political Committees surely herald one in the coming days.

The conference began on Saturday 24th, March with two members formally appealing against their expulsions. In true Weekly Worker style, the VOAG (Voice Of Anti-Capitalism in Guildford) publishes the first of the two expulsion appeals – Delivered to the conference as a speech.    

Bureaucrat Expulsion
I went to two meetings in Manchester where I met with half a dozen people from the RSO, Socialist Fight and others. There were two subsequent meetings in Manchester, but neither I nor Cde B. attended them.

Like all members of Workers Power, I attend meetings organised by a number of different groups. I didn’t consider my attendance at this meeting any different than attending an SWP or SP meeting or indeed holding discussions with local Anarchists or anti-cuts campaigners.

There was a variety of attitudes regarding what might be achieved by the discussions. Opinions ranged from formalising a new group to continued informal discussions. I made it clear that my interest in the meetings was from within the framework of an Anti-Capitalist project

I recall prior to joining Workers Power, speaking to the 2009 Anti-Capitalist event. I told the conference:”What we really want is local groups, we have to come together at a local level because we don’t believe that political groups are capable of achieving a meaningful unity on a National basis”. “An Anti-Capitalist Party must be built from below, as an umbrella organisation connecting local Anti-Capitalist groups with the flexibility and freedom to react and adapt to local conditions”.

“However “, I added: “The Anti-Capitalist Party was not a replacement for existing groups, but a way for existing groups – along with non-aligned activists and anti-cuts campaigners – to work together” It was the feeling of the Surrey United Anti-Capitalists, “that a federal approach to a new Anti-Capitalist Party may provide the break-through to a successful ‘unity project”. This continues to be my belief. It is surely imperative to maintain ideological coherence by struggling for a clear programme via democratic centralism, a paper and our identity.

Late in the evening before the NC meeting in January, I received a phone call from Cde B. He told me he had received an email from the NC regarding the meetings inManchester. He forwarded an email to me, which had been sent from Simon Hardy to the members of the NC. The email contained correspondence between Cde B. and Gerry Downing. The emails addressed issues that arose out of the Manchester meetings and included a discussion about what kind of an organisation, if any, might arise out of them.

I too have had similar discussions. If the Anti-Capitalist Party is to be a Party of the working class, it must encourage the entire labour movement to sign up- and be a forum where theories and practices are put to the test. As Richard Brenner asked rhetorically in Workers Power 341, (Winter 2009): “Do we say that we want it to be a pluralist party? We want a democratic party in which everyone can say what they think. But another feature is that we want to win the argument in the party for revolution”.

It should be obvious that winning the argument for revolution requires a functioning group, faction or caucus to consistently argue for revolutionary Trotskyist politics inside the Anti-Capitalist project. Only Trotskyism has the programme that can defeat and replace the existing leadership of the working class by the method of the transitional programme. Bringing down the government and leading the working class to a socialist future.

I was aware that discussions were continuing between the participants of the Manchester meetings. Naturally, I too discussed these meetings. However, neither I nor Cde B. participated in the e-group where the emails Simon presented to the NC originated. Indeed, I didn’t know of the existence of the e-group.

Simon Hardy was leading the proposal for my expulsion. No accusations regarding a breach of discipline were leveled against me. Simon’s sole charge was that I “attended a meeting of a group hostile to Workers Power and the Anti-Capitalist project”.

My answer to Simon was, and still is: “that we all attend meetings with groups hostile to Workers Power. However, I didn’t discuss or impart any privileged information regarding Workers Power and I don’t believe Cde B. did either”.

I must add to this now, that Simon is wrong regarding the caucus’ hostility to “Anti Capitalism”. It is my understanding that Socialist Fight, and the other participants in Manchester, with the exception of the RSO, were in favour of joining an Anti-Capitalist project.

Cde B. may have made references to divisions in Workers Power, but I do not believe any details beyond what was in the public domain, were ever discussed. I do not accept Cde B. or I broke discipline or any democratic-centralist principle.

Cde B. has consistently been one of the most active members of Workers Power inLondon. He is well known and respected for his work within the GRL. He has been involved in numerous campaigns, the electricians and bus drivers’ disputes being recent examples. Billy is also the most consistent recruiter. There are people in this conference today that Billy either recruited or introduced to Workers Power. Indeed, I believe it would be foolish for any rump that may continue after this conference not to actively recruit Billy to it.

No, I think it is obvious to us all that the real splitters are those who have finally broken cover at this conference to propose liquidation. It is they who have been undermining Workers Power, and as we shall see – in their rush to promote their vision of an Anti-Capitalist formation – have already broken from democratic centralist methodology. Far from seeking to split Workers Power, Cde B. was looking for ways to save its politics and programme, the very reason Cde B. and I joined the group in the first place.

Libya
The first major retreat from the programme was over Libya. Unlike the majority of Workers Power, I saw no basis to believe that a popular or progressive uprising was unfolding. Indeed, behind the headlines there was plenty of reason to assume the opposite. Whilst Workers Power rapped their support for the NTC in the flag of Permanent Revolution, I felt those same arguments correctly applied to the forces supporting Gadaffi.

The most disturbing aspect of Workers Power’s support for the NTC was that the NTC was openly courting the patronage of the imperialist powers. It even promised western companies “preferential treatment” in what amounted to another arms for oil deal.

Leon Trotsky, “On the Sino-Japanese War”, wrote: “The Trotskyists, they say, ‘want to serve Chiang Kai-shek in action and the proletariat in words’. To participate actively and consciously in the war does not mean ‘to serve Chiang Kai-shek’ but to serve the independence of a colonial country in spite of Chiang Kai-shek. And the words directed against the Kuomintang are the means of educating the masses for the overthrow of Chiang Kai-shek”. “You cannot advance Imperialism’s victory and the victory of the working class at the same time”.

The leadership’s justification for their Libyan position was in the name of democracy and abstract liberal freedoms. In the early days of the conflict, I questioned the leadership about the lack of reliable evidence substantiating claims that it was a genuine popular uprising. Where was the general strike? Where were the mass demonstrations? In terms of numbers, it appeared that the rallies in support of Gadaffi were always larger than NTC organised events. Indeed, apart from a couple of small demonstrations, the only forces that the NTC commanded were rag-tag militias backed up by a few tribes and foreign interventionists”.

I find it Ironic that I’m appealing my expulsion, when those that are most keen on it are seeking to dissolve Workers Power anyway. It appears I am accused of breaking democratic centralism. However, it is my feeling that democratic centralist discipline broke down in WP some months ago.

The paper has ceased to be a coherent representation of the group. Under Simon Hardy’s editorship the paper has become the arena for internal differences between an old guard, and a middle class clique, running to the right and away from the working class. Their duplicity and dishonesty is exposed by their inconsistent and ever rightward stances in the paper.

Occupy – The 99%
With regards to the Occupy movement: Sceptical comments such as “the 1% as they have been called by the occupiers”. Criticisms such as “[occupy’s] limitation of always talking about “the people”. And calls for “discussions as to who constitutes the main agency of change”. (November’s issue of WP) have disappeared from the pages of WP.

Such comments and criticisms have been gradually replaced by a populist, un-critical support for the Occupy movement. And has led to a banner reading “We are the 99%” on the top of the South London Anti- Capitalist Network blog.

In contrast, on the WP blog last week, Dave Stockton, referring to ‘Occupy’ notes the: “necessity of working class direct action –that is, strikes – seemed to escape the more doctrinaire horizontals”…”In fact horizontalism- is an expression of layers and classes whose position in capitalist society gives them no natural unity: the lower middle classes, students, long term unemployed and intellectuals, who seek to escape cut-throat capitalist competition but at the same time feel collectivity, especially discipline imposed by a majority, an intolerable violation of their freedom”.

Compare that to March’s Workers Power, ‘Next steps for the Occupy movement’ in which Anton Solka writes “We are the 99% has brought the issue of class to the fore, there really is an us and them.”

Personally, I consider myself to be working class and not one of the 99%. My interests run contrary to many of the 99%. – And I would expect Workers Power to argue for class politics; warn of the dangers and Stalinist origin of popular frontism, and expose the contradictions within the 99% movement.

As with Libya, elements of Workers Power, with scant sources of information provided by the bourgeois media, has jumped on to the populist bandwagon of democracy and freedom. Support for the autonomist, environmentalist and horizontalist forces – those that are described by the clique struggling to break up our group as ‘New Left’ – may have temporarily grown, but there is nothing qualitatively new in Occupy. This ideology and methodology has been part of the political scenery for decades. The leaders of London’s Occupy are not just of the same milieu, but in many cases are the very same people that were on the peace camps and convoys of the eighties, on the road protests of the 90’s, and on the occupations and climate camps of the naughties.

Anti-Capitalism
As far as the Anti-Capitalist project goes; the Workers Power paper rarely repeats the same line twice. In February’s Workers Power article, “Labour in the Unions” Dave Stockton appeals to the unions to “put their money behind building a new fighting, Socialist Party”…”It must be a party whose aim is not to court the selfish individualism of the middle classes, but to lead the working class in a struggle for power”.

Simon Hardy writes in February’s paper “It is the battle to unite the anti–cuts movement, to create a new sense of energy and activism that UKUncut and Occupy exemplified. Although in the Editorial of the same month he writes: “In Britain, too, after an initial breakthrough, Occupy has reached a dead end”. Such is the retreat to the right, that even the name Anti-Capitalist is too radical for some in Workers Power. The group set up in Brighton is called the New Left Initiative.

In Conclusion
In conclusion, there are several common threads running through Workers Power at present.
In Libya WP elevated bourgeois democratic demands over the economic needs of the working class. With little information to support the position, WP opportunistically rode the wave of populism and supported the NTC. Its position sacrificed the security of the Libyan people, its welfare state, and its resources for democratic freedoms that will never be achieved and for the illusion of parliamentarianism.    

Again in the paper’s coverage of the Occupy movement and its 99% slogan, a faction of WP showed itself to be impressionistic. With little first-hand experience of the occupations, WP used second hand reports to analyse occupy. Here again elements in WP bent to populist sentiment and degenerated into uncritical support for the occupy movement. They sacrificed class analysis for democratic demands, popular frontism and horizontalism. As Dave Stockton said above: “These are the politics of the petit-bourgeois”.

It seems to me that the reason for the inconsistencies in the paper of late is not just the result of arguments on the PC, largely hidden from the membership. It is the result of a middle class clique in Workers Power looking for a way out and using Anti-Capitalism as their vehicle. Why else are they suddenly so enthusiastic about a project that’s been talked about for years. Why else would they be rushing headlong in to forming Anti-Capitalist groups before WP has decided the nature of this Anti-Capitalist project?

The rub, the elephant in the room, is finally exposed on paragraphs 20 and 21 of the draft proposal to the NC (included in the pre-conference IB.). Regarding Anti-Capitalism it says: “We will not declare a formal tendency or platform” – [But somehow] “will remain members of the League”. I don’t really think these people have thought this thing through. Does this clique really expect to reconcile plurality and democratic centralism within the same organisation? Or indeed, expect to remain members of the League, whose rules of affiliation insist on a regular paper. Read the rules of the League! You’re so gone. It’s these inconsistencies, and there are many, many, more, that make me realise the clique’s sudden enthusiasm for Anti-Capitalism is an unprincipled retreat into petite-bourgeois acceptability. We’re lefties, but harmless, and oh so intellectual they tell their peers. After-all, they’re reaching that age.

A post-script: Today – 9th April
It’s just two weeks after the above speech was delivered to the WP Annual Conference. News is reaching the VOAG that Workers Power is splitting. The VOAG believes that it totally vindicates everything that the two comrades who were expelled told the conference.  It follows a complete breakdown in the democratic centralist principles professed by Workers Power, mentioned above. Those of the ‘central tendency’ who claim to remain Leninists, saying they want to continue to build WP as a tendency in the worker’s movement, could have and should have put a stop to the machinations of the right-wing splitters long ago. Their refusal to do so shows their opportunism, and has led to this unnecessary impasse.  The right-wing, liquidationist splitters should have been expelled long ago for breaches of discipline and democratic centralism. The fact that they were not proves the degeneration and right-wing, petite-bourgeois trajectory of the entire group.    

Kingston Anti Cuts Group: Protest Against Council Budget Cuts: The VOAG Reports

The VOAG joined the Kingston Anti-Cuts Group for a demonstration outside Kingston Council’s Budget meeting at the Guildhall, Wednesday, 29^th February.

 The council approved cuts of over £8.6million with another £4.4million planned for next year and a further £12 million the year after. They follow cuts of over £15million last year.

Kingston Council has already made a 100 redundancies, cuts to  children’s services and £1.4million cuts to mental health facilities. At the same time the council has spent £20,000 on car park “rebranding”. A further 600 jobs are to be lost at Kingston hospital, together with £6million cuts to adult social care and services for children with Special Educational Needs. Another £500,000 is to be cut from “One Kingston” projects.

Kingston TUC, the CWU and GMB unions, the Communist Party, Kingston Anti Cuts Group, Kingston SWP, the Socialist Party, Surrey Unison, the IWW and Kingston Labour Party were represented in the 60 strong demonstration.

The demonstration was joined by the Christian Peoples Alliance, who held a candle-lit vigil and said prayers for “those less fortunate than themselves” (us), before taking off in their brand new cars.

As the Tory and Lib-Dem councillors arrived for the meeting, they were met with chants directed at the Tory council leader: “Derek Osbourne get out, we know what you’re all about- cuts, job losses, money for the bosses”. Campaigners also shouted “Save our services- stop the cuts!” and gave out leaflets to passers-by.

Kit Leary from Surrey County Unison gave a spontaneous speech to the demonstration assembled on the steps of the Guildhall, he said: “With all these job losses, it’s a time when we need our public services more than ever.” When the meeting was due to start the campaigners joined the councillors in the warmth of the Guildhall.One fat balding Tory, councillor Priyen Patel, spoke of the council becoming a “commissioning council”. This is Tory speak for privatising services, where-by public services, presently provided direct by the council, are bought, or commissioned from private companies who profiteer from the tax-payer. He spoke of boosting charities rather than providing services.

Campaigners and residents in the public gallery were outraged. They shouted “They’re not ‘savings’ they’re CUTS, call them what they are” and chanted “Shame on you!”. The mayor Councillor Patrick Codd was forced to adjourn the meeting whilst half the public gallery were escorted out of the meeting under a threat of arrest. They chanted “shame on you” and “why don’t you stand up for the people you represent?” Some of the protesters broke away from their escort to run back into the meeting via another door to continue their berating.

The demonstration attracted a very positive reaction in the local press and won some great publicity for the Kingston Anti Cuts campaign. Once again the Super-Swappies (SWP) of Kingston, who organised the event, show the rest of us how it’s done. Some of those present asked after the South London Anti Capitalists and wondered why they hadn’t come out to support the demonstration. Well, the VOAG thinks the clue is in the acronym.

Workfare: Another Voice Of Anti-Capitalism in Guildford Investigation. – Plus March 3rd Day Of Action Demonstrations and Events List

Workfare – The Facts & The Figures: Another Voice Of Anti-Capitalism in Guildford Investigation.

See bottom of the post for a list of events and demonstrations in London. 
It must be the ultimate dream of capitalists. You get free workers. After all, as Tesco is fond of saying ‘every little helps’. But people have finally begun to rebel over the stigmatisation and demonisation of people on the dole. The new Tory Work Program has a core underlying philosophy. The unemployed are to blame for their own predicament.

Was it the unemployed who dealt in derivatives and financial instruments based on fraudulent risk assessments? Did the unemployed gamble with billions of pounds of other peoples’ money? Have unemployed people caused the recession?

Working for your £67.00 a week dole in a climate of no jobs simply means exploitation. And if someone gets a job at the end, then it means someone else doesn’t. All it teaches people to do is to compete more effectively against each other.

The government claims that “Work Experience”, “Community Action Programmes”, and other slave labour schemes are helping people “back to work”. But the truth is, companies availing themselves of these slave labour schemes are replacing paid staff with unemployed forced labour, creating more unemployment. Why would companies pay for staff when they are being provided free at the taxpayers’ expense?

Furthermore, there is a large body of research that indicates that shelf-stacking work only leads to more low paid shelf stacking work. Even highly qualified graduates, once they embark on low paid, low skilled jobs, find it much harder to gain skilled employment.

We need to get the message across that unemployment is endemic to capitalism. That demonisation and finding scapegoats is essential to a system that is desperate to blame any and everyone, except those who are most responsible.

Tesco, Burger King, Poundland and many other businesses are pulling out of the “Workfare” programme, as well as the other slave labour schemes. These schemes are in crisis. Now is the time to pile on the pressure.

March 3rd will see the next day of action against Workfare, and it promises to be the biggest yet. Workfare and the other slave labour schemes affect us all. They increase unemployment and reduce wages for the rest of us. Companies such as Poundland are paying their workers less and less whilst making huge profits because they know there is an ever-increasing pool of unemployed labour threatened with doing the same work for nothing.

Before pulling out of the scheme, Tesco reported that over the past four months some 1,400 people have worked for them without pay. Meanwhile, its profits for the first half of 2011 were £1.9 billion. And Tesco CEO Philip Clarke is on target for £6.9 million this year.

Steve Short, from the Boycott Workfare Campaign http://www.boycottworkfare.org told The VOAG; “It is staggering that while unemployment continues to rise, the government is replacing paid work by pushing out workfare on a massive scale. The organisations profiting from free labour can afford to pay a wage but are choosing not to. Actions this weekend will show that they risk their reputation if they do not withdraw from workfare.”

It is our duty – as trades unionists, activists, workers and youth to join in the day of action on March 3rd. These schemes are teetering on the edge. One more push and we can close them down for good. Below is a list of demonstrations in London on Saturday March 3^rd. Please consider joining one near you or come to the main demonstration in Oxford Street. Details below. 

There are several government forced labour schemes – and no matter what the government says there is an element of compulsion to all of them.The Work Experience Scheme –
This scheme is designed for 16 to 24 year olds. The government admits that young people who refuse to go on the eight-week placements will loose benefits. It intends to create 250,000 Work Experience placements. Once the placement is completed, benefit claimants can be forced to go strait on to another scheme. The placements can be never ending.

The Mandatory Work Activity Scheme –
This scheme is for claimants aged 18 or over. The scheme mandates four weeks’ work unpaid for 30 hours a week. Although the government claims it is “community work”, its definition of this includes private companies. 24,010 people were mandated to take part in MWA between May and November last year.

Community Action Programme –
Jobseekers are referred for up to 30 hours unpaid work per week for six months. They can be stacking shelves or tossing your burgers. The government says the Community Action Programme is designed for the benefit of the community. It is a clear sign that the government intends to use forced labour to replace the gaps left in public service delivery in the wake of service cuts. Provider guidelines suggest that a community placement would be appropriate at Local Authorities and Councils, Government Departments and Agencies, Charities and third sector organisations, Social Enterprises, and Environmental Agencies.

The Work Programme –
370,000 people were referred to the Work Programme between June and November 2011. 850,000 people are expected to be forced on to the programme by the end of the year. Ingeus, which administers Mandatory Work Assignments in the East Midlands and the North-East (owned by city financiers Deloitte) force people to do six month workfare placements. The Work Programme, is expected to cost the taxpayer £5 billion pounds. Claimants loose all benefits if they refuse to go on the scheme or drop out before its completion. Once the six month programme is concluded, job seekers can be required to immediately start another work placement. For more information on these schemes and for tips on how to avoid them visit: http://www.boycottworkfare.org

Workfare Doesn’t Work
On the 1st of April 2011, the Social Security Advisory Committee advised the government not to introduce Mandatory Work Activity. Its report said there was “no evidence that workfare increases the likelihood of finding work”. It continued: “there is evidence to suggest that by limiting the time available for job search activities, Mandatory Work Activity can in fact reduce the participants’ chances of finding employment.

The Committee stated “it appears to us to signal that being mandated to mandatory work activity is regarded as a punishment rather than an opportunity to learn and develop new behaviors and skills”. The report continued: “there is a risk that the presence of Mandatory Work Activity on a jobseeker’s CV could stigmatise a jobseeker when applying for a job in the future.
The report went on to say that the Committee is “very concerned that this is an exploitation of people who have no choice” and there is no provision to “monitor employers or to end their involvement should they be found exploiting participants or requiring them to undertake inappropriate work.

There is no requirement for “employers” to provide equipment, for example clothing. There is no provision for job seekers to take time off for illness or to attend medical appointments, or to look after a child if it falls sick. There is no requirement for the employer or placement administrator to reimburse expenses for travel or childcare. The lack of childcare costs will make it impossible for one-parent families to participate in the programmes, leaving them vulnerable to benefit sanctions.

This 18 page report by the governments own Social Security Advisory Committee ends in big bold letters in a text box, copied and pasted from the report below:A4E and Emma Harrison
These schemes don’t come cheap. They are administered by private companies. A4E is one such company. Emma Harrison, the chair of A4E has had to step down from the company she founded, together with her government post as “Back to Work Czar”, after being caught with her hands in the till. Ruling-class scum like Harrison preach about benefit scroungers, whilst they take home millions. Whilst her company is mired in fraud and corruption scandals, Harrison paid herself £8.6m last year.

The only revenue A4E earns comes from our taxes. It is paid by the government according to the numbers of job seekers it manages to force on to government schemes. The Guardian reported on 22^nd February that A4E was under police investigation. It had been forcing job seekers to work unpaid in its own offices in order to get the “placement” commissions. Jobseekers were forced to work in their offices in Woolwich, Camden and Holloway or have their benefits stopped. The investigation, reported the Guardian, also revealed that from the 12 months to late June 2011 the company sent people to work unpaid in Asda, Sainsbury’s, Oxfam and a host of other businesses.

A “company official, who did not want to be named” was quoted in the Guardian, as saying; “that in addition to the revenue from the commissions and the free labour, sending jobseekers to work in its offices helped A4e cut down on its overheads as it didn’t have to spend time on organising placements”.

So far four A4E employees have been arrested, and the head of the Commons Public Spending Watchdog has demanded the government stops working with A4E until the police investigation is completed. The Public Spending watchdog has highlighted that A4E has been named preferred bidder for a £15 million contract with the Skills Funding Agency to provide education to prisoners in London.

A4E admitted that the present police investigation was only one out of a total of ten cases of corruption that had been referred to the Dpt of Work and Pensions. As a result, the company has been forced to repay public funds on five separate occasions due to “irregularities”.

The  Dept of Work and Pensions has also criticised A4e for paying £11 million in dividends last year, 87% to Ms Harrison, despite all its £180 million UK turnover resulting from Government welfare to work contracts. In addition to these incredible sums of public money, Emma Harrison also received nearly £2 million from leasing properties she owned or controlled back to her business.

The allegations against A4e are unending. Jobseekers report being made to sign blank time sheets, and of government vouchers—intended to help the jobless buy adequate clothing for interviews—being stolen by advisers. Its also been accused of claiming that jobseekers have found full-time work placements, when their jobs lasted less than 24 hours.

According to the Mail On Sunday, A4E receives a fee of £400 for every jobseeker referred to it. When that person finds work for 26 weeks—whether it is continuous or in breaks—it receives £1,200, followed by a monthly “sustainment fee”. It is estimated that A4E earns approximately £13,000 for every successful placement.

A dossier compiled on A4E includes the complaint that the firm was “nothing short of a gravy train”, in which fraud was “systemic” and “common practice”. In response, an unamed Labour MP contacted the Guardian to say Labour MPs were concerned that the MWA programme had not been scrutinised by the Commons and had passed into law with the “tick of a minister’s pen” last year.

Other Workfare providers include REED, SERCO and Atos – and they are being subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of billions. It is they who depend on state handouts not the unemployed. Seetec made £53 million last year from its involvement in the Work Programme, while Ingenus was awarded contracts worth £727 million.
Social Security Advisory Committee Report, April 2011: Condemming the Workfare programmes. Read Here.

Where to go on the March 3rd Day Of Action Against Workfare
Islington            10am         Outside Angel Islington Tube

Brixton              12pm         Outside Tesco, 13 Acre Lane, Brixton

Brixton              12pm         Outside Brixton Job Centre

Kingston              1pm         Outside Starbucks, Kingston

Oxford Street    11.30am      Outside BHS

Ealing                 1pm          The Arcadia Center, 50/52 Broadway

Lewisham            1pm         Outside McDonalds, Lewisham High Street

Walthamstow     12pm         Outside Nat West bank, Walthamstow Town Square

Hackney             12pm         By St Augustines Tower, Mare Street

Stratford             12pm         Westfield Center
For a comprehensive list of Workfare demos and actions around the country visit: http://www.boycottworkfare.org

Day Of Action Against Workfare. Kingston Town Centre, February 22nd, 2012

The VOAG (Voice Of Anti-Capitalism in Guildford) joined the Kingston SWP for a  demonstration against Workfare. Kingston Town Centre, February 22nd, 2012.

Below is a quick Powerpoint report on the evenings events together with a few pictures.
Please click on the picture below.For more on this story, click: https://suacs.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/workfare-demo-kingston/

The next National Day Of Action aginst Workfare will be on Saturday, March 3rd. Protest outside BHS, Oxford Street from 11.30.  http://www.boycottworkfare.org/

For more about Workfare and tips on how to avoid being trapped in to it by the Job Center, go to  http://www.boycottworkfare.org/

National Day of Action Against Tesco’s Workfare Scheme. Kingston Upon Thames. 22nd, February.

Tesco is boosting it’s £4 billion profits by using the slave labour provided by the Government’s ‘Workfare’ schemes. Take the fight against Tesco into the streets of Kingston on the National Day of Action against Tesco. Wednesday, 22nd, February. 5:30pm until 6:30pm, Kingston Station

From Corporate Watch
The campaign against workfare has claimed some major successes over the last month, with Sainsburys, Waterstones and TK Maxx bowing to pressure and pulling out of some (though not all) of the government’s workfare programmes. Other companies now face a dilemma: do they also withdraw to avoid further bad publicity, or do they continue to enjoy the free labour that workfare brings? Corporate Watch finds the benefits of workfare for retailers such as Asda and Argos make it difficult to say no to.

Over the Christmas period for example, the government’s eagerness to send unemployed people on unpaid placements meant stores did not need to go to the trouble of hiring and paying temporary workers as they would normally. Joe Wilson, a 21 year old on Jobseekers Allowance, worked a four-day week, unpaid, for six weeks from the middle of November at the Asda superstore in Harrogate, Yorkshire.He told Corporate Watch: “There were about 15 of us on placements. The manager said they had overspent on stocking Christmas stuff so they’d got people in on placements [to save money]. The paid staff told us they were being asked to leave before they’d ended their shift as we could do the work. I worked Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. They arranged it so everyone came in those days.”

 His Jobcentre had said that if he didn’t attend the placement his benefits could be stopped: “The Jobcentre had got a group of us in for CV writing training. It was really obvious stuff – don’t use a crayon and so on. When we were there they said some people had come to speak to us about a work experience programme. Then a few days later I got a letter saying that, as I’d expressed an interest they’d be organising a work placement. The letter said if I didn’t go they’d stop my JSA. I’d never said I wanted to do a placement in Asda.”

A spokesperson at Asda’s head office told Corporate Watch that the company hadn’t received any reports of workfare placements replacing paid staff and they would “investigate further,” adding the placements were “not designed to substitute colleague roles”. Despite several follow-up calls and emails, we have not heard anything since.

Argos: discount products, discount labour
A claimant in Bristol told Corporate Watch how paid Christmas work in the Argos store in the Galleries shopping centre disappeared when the company realised it could get people in for nothing on workfare placements. ‘Jason’, who wishes to remain anonymous, said Seetec, the ‘provider’ company that he was sent to by the Jobcentre, had arranged an interview for him and 13 others for temporary work. They were not hired because the store instead took people on unpaid placements organised by Prospect, another employment provider company, which ironically has its Bristol office in the same building as Seetec.

Argos told Corporate Watch that its stores had “liaised over our peak Christmas trading period with local job centres to offer working opportunities to job seekers through initiatives called work placements or work trial”. The retailer went on to say it is currently assessing whether its trials over the Christmas period will continue and that it “endeavoured to offer permanent roles to young people” after the placements. Corporate Watch asked how many permanent roles had been offered but we have not received a reply. Prospect did not reply to any of our enquiries.

You’re supposed to find me a job, not turn me into a slave!
Workfare does not only replace paid work at Christmas. ‘Chris’ was sent to do a three month placement in Booker Wholesale in Bath. He told Corporate Watch that when the placement commenced the manager said that if he worked hard he would get a job, but he soon found out that this was unlikely:

“I asked the manager about jobs and he said: ‘keep working as you are and you will be fine’. The turning point came for me about two months in, when two part-time employees were laid off for stealing some alcohol. I thought there would be a job for me but they hired the brother of an employee already working there. I went to see the manager and he said that there were no positions. He suggested I could continue doing four days a week unpaid. I left in disgust and took my last two days off. They had the nerve to say: ‘what if we are counting on you to be there?’ Then hire me! You’re supposed to help me find a job, not turn me into a slave.”

Paid employment ‘unlikely’
Workfare is becoming such a popular way for retailers to staff their stores that they are finding it hard to keep count of how many workfare staff they have. A spokesperson for entertainment retailer HMV told Corporate Watch its placements are organised on “a more localised basis” so it is difficult to “fully track all the placements in place across the chain at any one time.” But at least the company is less coy than Argos and Booker about the likelihood these placements will lead to paid work, admitting: “it’s unlikely that [a] large number will go on to achieve full time paid employment with the company.”

Have you been sent on an unpaid work placement or do you know someone who has? Contact Corporate Watch on 02074260005 or contact corporatewatch.org

National Day of Action against Tesco.
Wednesday 22nd, February
5:30pm until 6:30pm Kingston Station
Wood Street, KT1 1TG London, United Kingdom