Lead story

Osborne: in a hole and still digging

by Daphne Liddle

CHANCELLOR George Osborne says he wants to help “hard-working people”. But the budget he delivered last Wednesday is yet another blow to the working class.

Over the past two-and-a-half years his austerity measures have destroyed jobs, devastated wages, thrown “hard-working families” out of their homes and plundered the meagre benefits of the sick and disabled.

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Editorial

Beware the Troika bearing gifts

NO ONE can have any illusions about how the European Union works and what it serves after reading the details of the latest “rescue” package for the Cypriot banks. The deal includes the usual draconian mass privatisations and the slashing of state welfare. But this time there’s going to be a new arbitrary levy on individual savings that could easily be imposed on other member states when they next come crawling to the “troika” of the European Central Bank, the EU and the International Monetary Fund for another loan.

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