Lead story

Plans for NHS cuts kept secret

by Daphne Liddle

NHS BOSSES are gearing up for a new round of cuts to hospital services throughout England, instructing local managers to draw up reviews of their services — but ordering the staff involved not to inform the public — according to a new report released by the Kings Fund.

This means that medical staff and patients are being kept completely in the dark whilst decisions are being made on a financial basis according to a new agenda known as “sustainability and transformation plans” (STPs).

The aim is to have all the decisions made and sewn up before the plans are open to a sham public consultation, and to render opposition and protest campaigns irrelevant before they have begun.

Read the full story here >> Plans for NHS cuts kept secret

RMT victory for Tube workers

TRANSPORT union RMT confirmed on Monday that it had secured a massive victory for Tube Lines maintenance staff on London Underground on pensions, pay and Night Tube:

  1. Pensions: Access to the Transport for London (TfL) Pension Fund for all current employees and new joiners from 29th January 2017. Former Metronet staff on Transport for TfL and London Underground (LU) will also be able to enter the scheme.
  2. Pay: A protected RPI [retail price index] pensionable salary increase in every year from April 2015 until April 2019. Plus a consolidated £500 payment in the first year in recognition of the move to a 24-hour passenger service operation.
  3. Night Tube: A £500 non-consolidated payment to all Operational Staff following the successful launch of the service on the Piccadilly Line on 16th December 2016.

Read the full story here >> RMT victory for Tube workers


Editorial

Park Geun Hye must go!

A SINGLE protester outside the Russian embassy or a handful of Arab stooges at a peace rally makes headlines in our national press. A north Korean diplomat defects to the south Korean regime in London and its national news for weeks on end. A few thousand anti-Trump protesters on the streets in the United States hits the headlines all over the western world.

But when over a million south Koreans take to the streets to denounce their corrupt, puppet president and call for her resignation it barely gets a mention in the august pages of the bourgeois media.

Last weekend over a million demonstrators took to the streets of Seoul, the capital of south Korea, to demand that puppet president Park Guen Hye stands down.

Read the full editorial here >> Park Geun Hye must go!