Lead story

Cameron and Osborne must go!

by Daphne Liddle

DAVID CAMERON and George Osborne must be secretly thanking the fascist terror group ISIS as the tragedy this group has inflicted on Brussels has ensured that there has been little media coverage of the astounding events unfolding in Westminster this week.

Chancellor George Osborne has been forced to tear up a large part of the budget he announced just a week ago and promise not to make big cuts to the Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) of disabled people — while cutting the taxes of the rich by the same amount.

The public outrage at this, as the mainstream media suddenly discovered after six years that the disabled have been bearing the brunt of the austerity cuts while the rich have been enjoying tax cuts, prompted the resignation of former Work and Pensions Secretary Ian Duncan Smith, who suddenly discovered he had a conscience.

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Cameron and Osborne must go!

Massive stand up to Racism rally

by New Worker correspondent

ALL AROUND the world hundreds of thousands of people marked United Nations Stand up to Racism Day on Saturday with marches, rallies and in London some 20,000 gathered outside the BBC headquarters in Portland Place to march to a rally in Trafalgar Square.

The main theme of this year’s event in London was: “Refugees are welcome” and that Britain should do much more to take in and accommodate the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing from African and the Middle East into Europe — especially as Britain is one of the chief imperialist nations responsible for the wars and interventions that these people are fleeing from.

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Massive stand up to Racism rally

Scottish Labour Party Conference

by our Scottish political affairs correspondent

THE SCOTTISH Labour Party’s Spring Conference took place on Saturday at Glasgow Science Centre. Two notable persons were absent in body: neither Jeremy Corbyn nor John MacDonnell were to be seen, despite Corbyn being in the city the day before.

According to Kezia Dugdale this heralded a “new age” for the Scottish Labour Party, which meant “the Scottish Labour leader is in charge of what happens in Scotland”. But both Corbyn and McDonnell were there in spirit.

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Scottish Labour Party Conference

Editorial

Tories in self-destruct mode

DISABLED people throughout Britain celebrated last Friday night and Saturday at the news that Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith had resigned, claiming he that had an attack of conscience over the most recent cut to benefits received by disabled people.

Not many people fell for his crocodile tears — as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn asked: “Where has his conscience been for the last six years?” as cut after cut has hit disabled people so that rich people could enjoy tax cuts. But he confirmed what we knew all along, that these and the other cruel austerity cuts have nothing to do with fiscal necessity or reducing Britain’s debt so much as the Tories’ Mammonist extremist dogma that the rich and greedy are entitled to anything they want to grab and those who are poor must be condemned to suffer as much as possible.

But the follow-up question we should be asking is where has the conscience of the main stream media been for the last six years? Why is it that this latest cut has led to outrage in mainstream headlines about the disabled suffering cuts to their Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) so that the better off can have tax cuts when other cruel cuts have been ignored?

This could be partly associated with division within the ruling class over the European Union and certain media barons trying to sabotage Cameron’s efforts to keep Britain in the EU by discrediting Cameron and Osborne. But the big difference has to be Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the opposition and that he challenged this injustice in his response to George Osborne’s budget last Wednesday, leaving Cameron and Osborne visibly embarrassed.

This would not have happened under recent previous Blairite Labour leaders. Half the Labour MPs would have abstained and the rest would have supported the cut, arguing that, although painful, austerity and cuts are necessary to balance the books. Only a handful, those close to Corbyn before he shot to fame last year, would have voted against.

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Tories in self-destruct mode