7th March 2013 - SchNEWS Issue 839

The absent owner of the bungalow could rest safe in the knowledge that the police were preventing a homeless man from seeking shelter in the forgotten property in -2 degree conditions...The otherwise healthy 35-year-old man Daniel Gauntlett died of hypothermia...[T]he man died unnecessarily as a direct result of the criminalization of squatting empty buildings, a law brought to the table, spearheaded and pushed through parliament by the morally vacant turd that is Mike Weatherley MP.

By Robert Stevens - 14 March 2013

Labour’s One Nation rhetoric and promulgation of filthy anti-immigrant policies has escalated in line with the deepening crisis of British capitalism...Evocations of “One Nation” Britain are Labour’s latest and more comprehensive offering to the ruling elite...of a means to divide workers in the UK from their class brothers and sisters in Europe and internationally in order to better carry out the destruction of jobs, wages and conditions.

By Julie Hyland - 11 March 2013

Plans for the wholesale privatization of the National Health Service (NHS) were laid bare in statutory regulations published by the Department of Health...Private sector encroachment into the NHS was already well established...but the last year has seen entire hospitals taken over by private companies. Under conditions in which the NHS is being subject to £20 billion of “efficiency savings”, everything has been set in place to transform the NHS wholly into a “for profit” entity.

By Warren Clark - Znet

The use of workfare has escalated over the past year...‘Mandatory work activity’, which compels people to work without pay for 30 hours a week for four weeks, has been expanded to 70,000 placements a year, despite Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) research showing that it had ‘zero effect’ on people’s chances of finding work. The so-called ‘work experience scheme’...is expected to put 250,000 people to work without pay over the next three years...With five other workfare schemes also in operation, it all adds up to workfare replacing paid jobs and driving down wages.

By Dave Hyland - 7 February 2013

Undercover police officers working for Britain’s largest force used the identities of dead children and issued fake passports in their names...Scotland Yard said it is investigating “past arrangements for undercover identities used by SDS (Special Demonstration Squad) officers”.

By Thomas Scripps - 2 February 2013

The incapability of capitalism to provide everyone with the basic right to a job is now manifesting itself as an assault on the mental well-being of a generation. These figures damn any popular media or political claims seeking to show welfare payments as an excuse for “shirkers”. The joblessness imposed on young people by the capitalist system leads not to an easy life, but an unfulfilling existence.

Threats in the name of His Royal Highness, a car rammed into our house, and menacing phone-calls to our children – This all happened to my wife and I following a meeting we had back in 2005 with journalists from the Guardian at their office in Manchester, England.

By Paul Veevers - 26 January 2013

Last week, Chris Grayling, the minister of justice in the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government, announced plans to privatize 70 percent of the Probation Service in the UK, to be completed by spring 2015...All future prisons will be private.

By John Pilger - Znet Commentary

The Shammies celebrate the finest sham media. “Competition for the 2013 Gold Shammy,” said the panel of judges, “has been cutthroat.” The Shammies are not for the tabloid lower orders. Rupert Murdoch has been honoured enough. Shammies distinguish respectable journalism that guards the limits of what the best and brightest like to call the “national conversation”.

By Robert Stevens - 14 January 2013

A further £14.2 billion in spending cuts were announced in December by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government, including an annual 1 percent cap on welfare benefit payments until 2016...The cuts take place on top of austerity measures totaling £155 billion...Many benefit payments, including Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Maternity Allowance and Sick Pay, will be cut.

By Jordan Shilton - 12 January 2013

British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband has intensified his party’s promotion of anti-immigrant chauvinism. In two speeches now, Miliband has decried what he terms are uncontrolled levels of immigration, while advocating a strengthening of national identity...The aim of Miliband’s remarks was to place the blame for the disastrous decline in living standards for the broad mass of the working class in recent years onto immigrants and shift the debate sharply to the right.

By Dennis Moore - 4 January 2013

Figures published by the Homelessness Monitor...show that more people are becoming homeless and sleeping rough (on the streets) in England...Across the UK, significant numbers of local authorities saw rough sleeping increase by 100 percent. In a national count of people sleeping rough carried out...between autumn 2010 and 2011, an increase of 23 percent was recorded. In London the rise in rough sleeping was 43 percent above the previous year...[T]he trend is set to get much worse as council budgets are slashed and services to prevent homelessness and rough sleeping are cut.

By Paul Bond - WSWS

Three months ago Andrew Mitchell MP resigned as Conservative Party Chief Whip following allegations that he had abused police officers...It is now clear that much of the evidence against Mitchell was fabricated by police officers. CCTV footage does not support the police version of events, and a supposed civilian eyewitness whose account agreed with that of the police has now been revealed to be a police officer himself.

By Mark Blackwood - 22 December 2012

Evidence has emerged of the mounting mental health crisis engulfing the North East of England as a consequence of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government’s drive to implement the demands of the world financial markets...A recent report authored by the Health and Social Care Information Centre reveals that when compared to the London area, the North East, the poorest region in the UK, has almost three times the rate of self-harm/attempted suicide hospital admissions.

By Robert Stevens - 17 December 2012

[The] policy of mass austerity is one shared by the Labour Party. A loyal tool of big business, in government Labour initiated the assault on social provision...This is why even the mere suggestion that Labour should at least attempt to adopt some guise of opposition to Osborne’s brutal assault on welfare recipients has created a political crisis in its ranks.