Them & Us

Them and us fishes, photo Suzanne Beishon (Click to enlarge)

Cancer ward wait

If you've got cancer and a few grand lying around, private health firm HCA advertises bowel surgery in London for just £20,045. Meanwhile, private providers in the NHS cherry-pick easy cases - leaving the impoverished public providers to deal with the rest.

And cancer patients in England face the worst NHS waiting times on record. Over 18,000 suspected cancer sufferers wait longer than the one-month target for treatment, according to new NHS England data.

Outsourcing outpouring

The value of public contracts awarded to vulture outsourcers has exploded by 53% in a year, says general union GMB. After leeching £62 billion in 2016-17, the privateers drained £95 billion in 2017-18!

Readers will recall that the latter financial year concluded with the total collapse of super-outsourcer Carillion.

Its multimillionaire bosses are still at large - while workers ended up in the scrapheap.

Toxic tube

photo Petr Kratochvil/CC (Click to enlarge)

Toxic 'particulate pollution' in London Underground stations could be up to 30 times higher than beside busy roads! The Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants found 492 micrograms per cubic metre in Hampstead, the deepest station, compared to just 16 micrograms at the average capital roadside.

But don't all Londoners have to use the tube? No. Commuting bosses could hire a Mercedes V class from Belgravia Chauffeurs at just £2,495 for a five-day booking! Quite the bargain.

Universal Credit conquest

In another humiliation for the Tories, even the judiciary has come out against part of their Universal Credit welfare attacks.

The High Court ruled on 11 January that the nonsensical system which calculates income monthly - even when paycheques are not - does indeed wrongly cause claimants to lose money.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd has also promised a partial rollback on Universal Credit's two-child limit for child support.

If your kids were born before April 2017, the Tories will now pay you a pittance for each, not just the first two. They try to play us off against each other even as they squirm to make concessions.

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Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.