Ahead of the Police & Crime Commissioner elections, a negligence verdict in Oregon has intensified pressure to keep the tainted contractor KBR out of UK policing. CLARE SAMBROOK reports....
Crisis and a new economy
The present crisis shows that our economic model needs a radical re-design, according to Tim Jenkins of the New Economics Foundation, guest speaker at the latest 'Dialogues in Politics and Culture' event organised by the Leeds Taking Soundings group....
Key Questions Facing Co-op Leaders
As Cameron woos the co-op movement, JACK STREET asks if the co-op ideal is being hijacked to help privatise the state....
Trying to make sense of Hackney’s riots
Local resident MATTHEW BROWN sifts through the context and consequences of the riots which erupted on Hackney's streets and estates on 8 August....
NHS Reforms: An insider’s view
Health care professional NELLI FINN provides an inside account of years of NHS reform, a tale of competing trusts, contracting out, cost-cutting and chronically low morale. I have been working for the NHS as an occupational therapist since 1995 and, apart from a couple of brief sojourns abroad and in the private sector, have...
Pension lies
The government’s repeated lies about pensions have been exposed by the Today programme’s Evan Davis, writes WILL BROWN. For the second day in a row Government Ministers have been unable to defend Cameron’s lie that the public sector pension scheme is ‘going broke’. The claim was made by Cameron in a speech on Monday...
25,000 demand Cameron stops the ‘Blood Money’
Unite’s campaign to stop the privatisation of the NHS Blood Service has received huge public support which is still growing. In under a week, the union’s petition demanding that David Cameron stops the blood money was signed by 25,000 people (go to http://action.unitetheunion.com/page/s/BloodMoney?source=UniteTwitter to add your name). The petition was launched last Friday 3rd...
Save our NHS
The drastic NHS reforms being pushed through parliament may do long-term damage to a much-loved institution. It isn’t too late to make your voice heard. Sign the petition: http://saveournhs.com/# About the bill The government’s proposed Health and Social Care BIll represents the most radical change to the NHS is its 60 year history. The...
Big Society ‘fantasy’ turns into ‘nightmare’
The Big Society was a short-term fantasy that turned into an enduring nightmare for thousands of charities, Unite, the largest union in the country, said this week. Unite, which has 60,000 members in the Not for Profit sector, said that David Cameron’s pipedream should be investigated immediately by the Commons Public Administration Select Committee....
The mess we’re in
Soundings’ ebook, Britain’s Broken Economy – and how to fix it, is an essential read for anyone interested in a left alternative to UK capitalism, says BEN TURLEY. For political reasons, Britain’s Broken Economy does not touch on the structuraldeficit or engage with arguments about the sustainability of public expenditure. This is because the...
No solutions, much confusion
JONATHAN TIMBERS searches for the soul of social enterprise but finds a rather worrying state of mind This event was billed as ‘social enterprise solutions to 21st century challenges’. It was held in the upmarket Manchester International Convention Centre in late January 2005. I attended the conference in the hope that by the end...
A more generous attitude of mind
The education bill is a wasted opportunity, say its critics. MATTHEW BROWN looks at a comprehensive alternative It ought to be the thing that unites us. Comprehensive education seems such a straight-forwardly progressive idea that you’d think it’d be the one area of policy the left could agree on. The notion that all children...