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The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

Lead story

Five percent on the dole!

TUESDAY saw the Office of National Statistics (ONS) issue the latest quarterly unemployment figures for September to November. These which show that in UK there are now 1.7 million or five per percent of people of working age on the dole. This is the both the highest since 2016 and the highest quarterly increase with 395,000 reported redundancies since the last quarter, and 828,000 lost jobs since February.

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Deaths at work

This week we chiefly look at the transport sector, with a glance at the retail sector; in particular, what the trade unions are doing with regard to the pandemic, both as regards the immediate health & safety issues, and the longer-term outlook. It is clear that “we’re all in it together” is a load of nonsense, with employers eager to take advantage of the pandemic to implement long-planned cuts in wages and conditions

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Editorial

Slow motion disaster

A GRIM milestone was reached on Tuesday when it was announced that that the death toll from COVID-19 passed the round figure mark of 100,000, a statistic proportionally amongst the worst in the world. Johnson got his retaliation in first by saying he took “full responsibility for the government’s actions”, adding: “We truly did everything we could.” At the same time, the Chief Medical Officer of Health for England warns that the death rate is likely to fall only “relatively slowly”, adding that the lockdown was only “just about holding” in lowering infection rates.

On the same day, predictably dire unemployment figures were announced. One would have thought that an opposition party would be way ahead in the polls by now, but Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is not. This is because he has not been doing any of the opposition that is the duty of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, a fact that even Johnson made fun of when being “grilled” by Starmer in the Commons.

Read the full story here >> Slow motion disaster