Tonight sea’s the start of the London 2012 Olympic games the opening ceremony to be watched by billions worldwide apparently. But while the rich revel in their wealth as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and more and more forgotten about. This really will be one of the most class divided Olympics ever.
Just take the living conditions for cleaners employed during the games.
One toilet between 25, one shower between 75, overcrowding and leaking roofs - these are the conditions facing the cleaners employed at the Olympic site. Most are migrant workers who have come to Britain specifically to work at the Games.
In stark contrast to the luxury of the Olympic village, they sleep in overcrowded metal cabins on a site that's been flooded so badly they have to use pallets as stepping stones. One told the Daily Mail that the site is "like a slum inside". When they arrived they were told there was no work for two weeks but that they still had to pay £18 a day 'rent'.
Many who came from poor countries with no prospect of decent work turned straight around and went home when they saw the facilities.
Compare this to the figures involved with G4S the private security firm brought in to secure the games it would seem they have failed already in managing to fulfil their contract of providing security guards for the games.
• £284m government Olympic contract
• 7 years since they won the contract
• £57m management fee
• 5,000 military personnel drafted in to plug the gap
• 8 police forces drafted in
• £830,000 salary of Nick Buckles, head of G4S
• £21m Buckles' golden goodbye if he's forced to leave
World records will not be the only things broken at this year's Olympic and Paralympic games. Promises for a lasting legacy - affordable housing, decent jobs, increased sports participation, and the rest - are being broken, too. The greatest sporting show on earth has been dragged down by crass commercialisation, and become a test-bed for increased state repression. In this edited version of an article in Socialism Today, Manny Thain reports on the neo-liberal Games.
It all began with a lie: that the London Games would cost £2.4 billion. That figure was never credible. Inexplicably, it did not include VAT or security expenditure. With these costs added, the bill would have totalled £3.9 billion - 20% VAT on £2.4 billion equals £480,000, plus the wildly out-of-control spending on security, around £1 billion.
So far, however, the elastic Olympics budget has been stretched to £9.3 billion. It all adds up to a massive swindle, a rip-off for working-class and middle-class people who stump up the most in direct and indirect taxes.
The government (via taxpayers) is paying £6.2 billion of that, the rest coming from the lottery (an indirect tax on the poorest). Despite assurances that the private sector would part-fund the major construction projects, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, reckon that less than 2% of the Olympics budget has come from private funding.
The London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (Locog), the body in charge of 'delivering' the Games, has raised another £2.1 billion to stage the show. Two-thirds of this has come from sponsorship by big business.
Locog gets a contribution from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The rest is from ticket and merchandising sales - again, mainly out of our pockets. Locog is headed by Lord Sebastian Coe, a gold-medal-winning athlete, former Tory MP, a 'world ambassador' for Nike sportswear, and multi-millionaire.
The IOC's main sponsors each pay over £60 million on ten-year contracts. This is capitalism, so in return for that money the corporations wield colossal power. In other words, at this fiercely competitive event, the organisers go to extraordinary lengths to protect the sponsoring companies from competition. It is unlawful for non-sponsors to use the word 'Olympics', the five-rings symbol or the Games' mottoes.
To protect broadcasters' rights, spectators are not allowed to upload images of events onto YouTube, or post pictures from inside the Olympic village on social media. Twitter will block non-sponsors buying promoted ads with hashtags such as #London2012. Athletes are banned from uploading video or audio recordings.
It remains to be seen how strictly the laws are applied to individuals, but the impression given so far is that the authorities really do mean business.
It is impossible to get a breakdown of ticket allocation for all the events. Lord Coe & Co refuse to provide this information. What is clear is that the more prestigious the event, the more the ticket allocation favours officials and sponsors.
The Guardian reported that, of the 80,000 seats available for the men's 100m final, only 29,000 (36%) have gone to the public. For the finals in the velodrome, 2,500 of the 6,000 seats will go to the public.
Even this late in the day you may get a ticket if you have connections with officials from 54 of the world's 204 countries represented at this year's Games - the source of a booming black-market trade. The IOC has been forced to announce that it will investigate, although any report will probably be delayed until after the Games are over. What it shows is the rotten state of world athletics' administration, run by an unaccountable, privileged clique at the top.
The preferential treatment for the 70,000 members of the so-called 'Olympic family' - officials, athletes, media, assorted hangers-on - does not stop there. It is one thing to ensure that the athletes are well taken care off.
They, at least, play a worthwhile role at the Games. It is quite another to roll out the red carpet to thousands of cosseted, bloated bureaucrats and political leaders, some from the world's most oppressive regimes.
They will be given exclusive border control lanes to speed their way through customs. They will be rushed to the sporting venues and hospitality suites along special road lanes, whizzing past the 'little people' struggling through London's traffic. Transport officials have warned of 100 days of travel disruption for the capital's residents.
An extra 585 civil service workers are to be drafted in, while summer leave has been cancelled for existing staff. Yet 880 jobs have been cut from the UK Border Force since 2010 by the Con-Dem coalition government. As soon as the Games are over, the axe will fall again, with a further 1,550 workers due to be sacked in 2014/15, culling staff numbers down by 18% to a total of 6,440.
Of all the legacy commitments, you might think that the aim to increase participation in sports would be straightforward. Half the job will be done by the incredible performances on track and field.
But the government has abandoned its target of getting one million more people playing sport by 2013.
The numbers swimming regularly in 2010-11 actually fell by 435,000 compared with 2007-08, with those playing tennis, football and rugby also falling. Among those aged 16 to 19, overall sports participation fell by more than 100,000 to 825,900.
The Con-Dems have taken the baton from New Labour, whose policy of selling off school playing fields ensures that young people get off to a very bad start. Since 2004, the budget for school sports has been slashed from £216 million to £35 million, with 3,400 sports coaches and coordinators sacked, and grants for 1,300 proposed playgrounds scrapped.
The Con-Dems have put the boot into people with disabilities, in spite of another legacy promise to widen their access to sport. At present, 18% of disabled adults undertake physical activity for more than 30 minutes a week, compared with 38% for non-disabled adults. The government plans to replace disability living allowance (DLA) with personal independence payments from 2113.
DLA is a non-means-tested benefit worth between £20 and £131.50 a week, paid to about 3.2 million people. It helps with the extra costs of transport, equipment, care and other needs. It has been crucial in enabling disabled athletes to participate and compete.
To enable it to do this, Atos Healthcare, which describes itself as 'the UK's leading occupational health service provider', has been brought in to test 11,000 claimants a week under a £100 million-a-year contract.
As a matter of course, Atos passes disabled people fit for work, driven by targets to get 500,000 people off benefits. It has left thousands wrongly denied payment. To add insult to injury, Atos Healthcare is a major sponsor of the Paralympics, paying £62 million over ten years.
Another claim which has fallen at the first hurdle is that the Games will be the 'most ethical ever'. The Independent on Sunday (6 May) reported a survey by Playfair 2012 into sweatshops producing goods for the Games.
It cites mistreatment at factories in the Philippines and China supplying Adidas, and factories run by Next in the notorious free-trade zones in Sri Lanka. None of the factories allow union membership.
Dow Chemicals is a £63 million IOC sponsor and is funding a £7 million fabric wrap around the Olympic stadium. Dow continues to deny any responsibility for the 1984 toxic gas and chemical disaster in Bhopal, India, which killed up to 20,000 people, and injured hundreds of thousands. Legal action is still being pursued in the US and India by victims and their families.
The Olympic Park has also been the focus of many protests by construction workers blacklisted in Britain, with effective trade union organisation kept off site.
One legacy guaranteed by the London Olympics and Paralympics will be a further strengthening of the repressive powers of the state. The security operation behind the Games is the largest in the UK since the second world war.
Alongside 13,500 troops and thousands of police officers, there was to be 48,000 private security staff. The company G4S was to train 23,700 personnel and should have had 10,000 on duty in a contract said to be worth £284 million.
The Games will boost the privatisation of security services, further undermining any accountability to local communities.
Central to an understanding of the Olympic/Paralympic Games swindle is seeing how the bid was won and the stitch-ups that followed.
Before London won the Olympic bid, the Chelsfield property company had plans to build a huge shopping complex in Stratford, in the east London borough of Newham. In 2004, it was bought out by three companies: Westfield, the world's biggest shopping centre operator, Multiplex, which built Wembley stadium, and the Reuben Brothers, property/asset dealers who made a fortune in Russia in the 1990s.
Public support is considered to be critical to any successful bid. So, the Olympic Bidding Committee (OBC), then chaired by Lord Coe, asked for the backing of Telco (The East London Communities Organisation - now known as London Citizens).
With members throughout the East End, including the support of around 80 community and religious groups, Telco had a bit of clout. It drew up an 'ethical Olympics agreement', including demands for affordable housing for local people, education, health and jobs on the London living wage. The agreement was signed in 2004 by Lord Coe, Ken Livingstone (then mayor of London), and Labour London Assembly member John Biggs, deputy chair of the London Development Agency.
The OBC was wound up once the bid had been won - with the plans to regenerate Stratford a major selling point, and including benefits to the other 'Olympic boroughs': Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Waltham Forest and Greenwich. The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) quango was set up in 2006 to plan and develop the facilities after the Games. It refused to meet Telco or recognise the agreement on the grounds that the ODA had not existed when the agreement was signed!
Meanwhile, Westfield had bought the other companies out. It passed the housing rights on to the developer, Land Lease. By this time, the subprime mortgage crisis was looming. The Land Lease deal collapsed and Westfield was stalling on work on the shopping centre.
As the New Labour government was preparing its £50 billion bailout and part-nationalisation of the banks, £5.9 billion of public money was pumped into the Olympic project to bail it out, too. The government agreed to finance the athletes' village, taking Land Lease on to manage it. Westfield was given £200 million of public money to pay for roads leading to the shopping complex.
Again, money taken from taxing working-class and middle-class people was handed over to some of the wealthiest property and construction companies in the world.
When the 500-acre Olympic Park reopens after the Games, in 2013, it will be named the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. It is the first park to be built in London since Victorian times and the first to be called a royal park since then. But London's eight royal parks were created in 1851 with the passing of the Crown Lands Act.
This transferred parklands owned by Queen Victoria into public ownership. In contrast, the Olympic park and its contents will be run privately.
The Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) is the quango that oversees the park. Chaired by Baroness Margaret Ford, it has already sold the athletes' village to a consortium led by the Qatari royal family, and plans to sell off the other bits of the park.
The OPLC is to be replaced by another quango, the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), with considerably greater powers over a far larger area. This means that a huge part of east London will be run privately, effectively out of the control of local government.
The legacy promise is that up to 11,000 homes will be built in the Olympic park, with 35% of them supposedly 'affordable'. It is unclear how many of those will actually materialise.
Changes brought in by the Con-Dem government in April mean that rent charged for so-called 'social housing' (subsidised housing mainly provided by housing associations) can be increased up to 80% of market rent. This is a massive increase.
Newham includes 13 of London's 15 most-deprived wards. Nearly half the population lives below the poverty line and 70% of children live in low-income households. There are 32,000 households on the council's waiting list. People have no choice but to rent privately.
The consequence is that very little, if any, of the new housing will be affordable to the vast majority of the people in Newham or the other Olympic boroughs.
The Olympic and Paralympic Games are occasions to celebrate and experience inspirational feats of skill, speed, strength and stamina.
They are a chance to participate in a great global party as athletes and spectators come together, watched by millions. The capitalist system, however, only has eyes for short-term profit.
For the multinational corporations, the Games are just an immense merchandising opportunity. They dictate the pace, aided and abetted by the rotten political establishment and corrupt officialdom.
This really will be a them and us Olympic games.
With extracts taken from issue 727 of the socialist www.socialistparty.org.uk
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Showing posts with label wealth gap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wealth gap. Show all posts
Friday, 27 July 2012
Monday, 16 April 2012
Are the rich feeling charitable ?
Allot of noise is being made of late about the rich and the levels of tax they pay. David Cameron wish’s to see a return of a society where the rich pay towards helping the poor more.
Philanthropy in other words. This is not to help the poor or to benefit them but to aid the rich in reducing their tax bill by giving some of their wealth away. The rich don’t do things to help the poor if there isn’t anything in it for them. Call me cynical but the rich only care about increasing their own wealth.
With Cameron and his Tories trying to replace public services with charity this is their idea of helping the poor. It’s an insult and highly patronising and all this is to aid the rich and their conscience.
The Tories say charity is more important than ever before but this is nonsense as they carry on cutting charitable funding from the government .
The better way to help the poor would be to reverse the cuts and invest in socially useful jobs and services to get people into work instead of making rich donations to ease their guilt of exploitation the poor which is fundamental to capitalism and the mode of production.
With the rich evading huge figures of tax a year a huge drive to tax the rich a hell of a lot more is desperatly needed with the aim of eventually bringing the commanding heights of the economy into public hands under workers control to benifit the millions not the millionaires
It’s time we pointed out charity should not be needed if society was equal and there wasn’t such huge gaps in wealth between the rich and the poor. It’s time to end this unfair system and replace it with a socialist planned society based on people’s needs over the benefit of a few rich individuals.
Philanthropy in other words. This is not to help the poor or to benefit them but to aid the rich in reducing their tax bill by giving some of their wealth away. The rich don’t do things to help the poor if there isn’t anything in it for them. Call me cynical but the rich only care about increasing their own wealth.
With Cameron and his Tories trying to replace public services with charity this is their idea of helping the poor. It’s an insult and highly patronising and all this is to aid the rich and their conscience.
The Tories say charity is more important than ever before but this is nonsense as they carry on cutting charitable funding from the government .
The better way to help the poor would be to reverse the cuts and invest in socially useful jobs and services to get people into work instead of making rich donations to ease their guilt of exploitation the poor which is fundamental to capitalism and the mode of production.
With the rich evading huge figures of tax a year a huge drive to tax the rich a hell of a lot more is desperatly needed with the aim of eventually bringing the commanding heights of the economy into public hands under workers control to benifit the millions not the millionaires
It’s time we pointed out charity should not be needed if society was equal and there wasn’t such huge gaps in wealth between the rich and the poor. It’s time to end this unfair system and replace it with a socialist planned society based on people’s needs over the benefit of a few rich individuals.
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
World capitalism teeters on the edge of disaster
More andm ore gloomy news meets us this week with the news that the world growth figures have been downscaled and world capitalsim edges ever slowly towards another global depression set to dwarf the great depression of the 30's. This is a real crisis now and one we are not getting out of anytime soon.
Only yesterday the worst-case expectation was that the UK’s Gross Domestic Product – the key measure of growth – fell by 0.1% between October and December. But today’s official figure from the Office for National Statistics reveals that the UK economy actually shrank by 0.2% in the last quarter of 2011, and is heading for recession.
Accumulated UK government debt broke through the £1 trillion mark as a dual consequence of falling tax revenues, continued support for the financial sector and higher welfare bills as a result of soaring unemployment.
Despite the ConDem’s stated intention to reduce the country’s dependence on debt, its combined corporate, public and household debt has increased to 507% of GDP and the country remains where it was in the league table of the richer nations when the crisis broke in 2007/8 – right at the top.
The world's economy is "deeply into the danger zone" because of risks from the eurozone, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.
The IMF predicts the global economy will grow by 3.25% in 2012, down from an earlier forecast of 4%.
The growth forecast for the UK economy has been cut to 0.6% from 1.6%.
But the eurozone is set for a "mild recession" in 2012, with GDP expected to shrink by 0.5%, compared with a previous forecast of 1.1% growth.
Not one of the capitalist leaders of teh ruling class know how to solve this crisis and prescribe more austerity to deal with this sinking us further and further into misery . While the rich get richer the poor get poorer. The contradictions and failings of world capitalism are becoming increasingly clear for all to see now.
What we marxists argued at the time of the 2008 financial crash and after there is no way out of this crisis as there is little fat on the bone left to play with. With china's economy slowing and having a knock on affect in South America and Africa where it had been investing heavily wil be scaled back leading to recessions and even longer term depressions in other parts of the world. No where will escape this i feel and unless this rotten system of greed over peoples needs is brought to a end where the wealth of the working class is expropriated for the benifits of the 1%.
It is time society was re organised and the worlds resources planned for the needs of the planet and its people which can all be met if wealth was shared out equally. In a socialist planned society
Only yesterday the worst-case expectation was that the UK’s Gross Domestic Product – the key measure of growth – fell by 0.1% between October and December. But today’s official figure from the Office for National Statistics reveals that the UK economy actually shrank by 0.2% in the last quarter of 2011, and is heading for recession.
Accumulated UK government debt broke through the £1 trillion mark as a dual consequence of falling tax revenues, continued support for the financial sector and higher welfare bills as a result of soaring unemployment.
Despite the ConDem’s stated intention to reduce the country’s dependence on debt, its combined corporate, public and household debt has increased to 507% of GDP and the country remains where it was in the league table of the richer nations when the crisis broke in 2007/8 – right at the top.
The world's economy is "deeply into the danger zone" because of risks from the eurozone, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.
The IMF predicts the global economy will grow by 3.25% in 2012, down from an earlier forecast of 4%.
The growth forecast for the UK economy has been cut to 0.6% from 1.6%.
But the eurozone is set for a "mild recession" in 2012, with GDP expected to shrink by 0.5%, compared with a previous forecast of 1.1% growth.
Not one of the capitalist leaders of teh ruling class know how to solve this crisis and prescribe more austerity to deal with this sinking us further and further into misery . While the rich get richer the poor get poorer. The contradictions and failings of world capitalism are becoming increasingly clear for all to see now.
What we marxists argued at the time of the 2008 financial crash and after there is no way out of this crisis as there is little fat on the bone left to play with. With china's economy slowing and having a knock on affect in South America and Africa where it had been investing heavily wil be scaled back leading to recessions and even longer term depressions in other parts of the world. No where will escape this i feel and unless this rotten system of greed over peoples needs is brought to a end where the wealth of the working class is expropriated for the benifits of the 1%.
It is time society was re organised and the worlds resources planned for the needs of the planet and its people which can all be met if wealth was shared out equally. In a socialist planned society
Monday, 14 November 2011
The growing polarisation in Britain today
We are currently seeing a growing polarisation of opinion, wealth, opportunity and pay i'm afraid to say. It really does feel like we are being taken back in time to a earlier time in history.
I was borin in the late 80's did not experience Thatcher and her horrors but am quickly becoming acustom in what it must have been like today in 2011. As we see our living standards stagnate or fall in many cases there is a growing feeling that the poor aare getting poorer and the rich are getting richer. This is being helped through by yet another tory government headed by a cabinet of millionaires .
The government's measures amount to the biggest single attack on the living standards of the British working class for 80 years.
The Independent, basing itself upon the figures of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, claims they are the deepest cuts since the 1970s.
But this is not true. In 1976, to receive an IMF loan of £2.3 billion, the then Labour government cut £2.5 billion from public expenditure, equivalent to no more than £20 billion today.
Osborne wants to impose an £81 billion slash and burn programme over four years. Indicating his determination to push through his brutal measures Osborne has let it be known that there is no 'plan B' to fall back on if his proposals are not accepted.
This is bravado on his and the government's part. But the British ruling class has a tried and tested policy of bending with the wind. Whenever they have confronted a determined mass movement which is prepared to go to the end of the struggle against them they have often retreated.
Sometimes, they throw overboard the 'general' whose plans have been thwarted. This was the fate of Margaret Thatcher in the mighty poll-tax battle which she lost and as a result was subsequently ejected from office.
Such an outcome in this battle is not to be excluded. This is a government of liars, who have no mandate - the Liberal Democrats are doing exactly the opposite of what they promised before the general election - and deserves to be driven from office.
But on the other hand this is only possible on the basis of determined policies matched by bold leadership.
We cannot rely on a labour party traditionally known as defenders of the poor. New labour have transformed themselves into apologists of the city and big business
We cannot rely on Labour to oppose the cuts and austerity to the poor and workers.
Moreover, Alistair Darling, previously New Labour's chancellor, has admitted that the cuts that would have been inflicted if New Labour had been re-elected would have been more severe than Margaret Thatcher's when she was in power.
From the outset, this government has pursued a policy of 'shock and awe'. There are many who naively believe that these are always 'somebody else's cuts', in a situation like this.
A recent survey of top 100 FTSE chief executives has shown that in the last year these bosses have received, on average, 50% pay rises. Top company boss Martin Sorrell had the brass neck to complain that his £1 million basic salary was "very low"!
This at a time when many workers have had to endure pay freezes especially in the public sector. In some cases, such as Southampton City and Hampshire county council, workers face pay cuts. Most of these workers are already some of the lowest paid. In the private sector as well, those who have received any pay rises have seen them more than wiped out by price inflation.
It's a disgrace that the parasites at the top can award themselves such huge rises while at the same time calling for further cuts in public spending, leading to more job losses and attacks on workers' terms and conditions.
The fat cats have tried to defend themselves by claiming that their salaries and bonuses are set by independent pay review boards. But the bosses sit on each others' review boards where they recommend huge pay increases for each other!
They have even claimed that their massive pay rises are down to 'performance', yet the system they head is in crisis. If their pay is linked to performance they should be paying us for the mess they've created!
Cameron and Clegg have expressed 'concern' over pay inequalities but working class people won't be fooled by this. The Con-Dems are determined to make the poorest people in society pay for the bankers' greed and the failures of capitalism.
The growing polarisation in society really is starting to grow now. With peoples opinions eitehr falling in the have's or have nots. There is a growing feeling that we are not all in this together as the tories would have us believe . The poor will not take this laying down and will fight back.
I was listening to a programme on BBC 5 live last night and a debate in a church in Birmingham with Edwina Currie claiming taht she doesnt beleive we have real povety in Britain today she thinks its all down to peoples choices and lazy attitudes to not work. Well if there were the jobs there in the first place Edwina maybe we could all find jobs. But jobs that pay a decent living wage should be our aim not just jobs for jobs sake.
I was borin in the late 80's did not experience Thatcher and her horrors but am quickly becoming acustom in what it must have been like today in 2011. As we see our living standards stagnate or fall in many cases there is a growing feeling that the poor aare getting poorer and the rich are getting richer. This is being helped through by yet another tory government headed by a cabinet of millionaires .
The government's measures amount to the biggest single attack on the living standards of the British working class for 80 years.
The Independent, basing itself upon the figures of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, claims they are the deepest cuts since the 1970s.
But this is not true. In 1976, to receive an IMF loan of £2.3 billion, the then Labour government cut £2.5 billion from public expenditure, equivalent to no more than £20 billion today.
Osborne wants to impose an £81 billion slash and burn programme over four years. Indicating his determination to push through his brutal measures Osborne has let it be known that there is no 'plan B' to fall back on if his proposals are not accepted.
This is bravado on his and the government's part. But the British ruling class has a tried and tested policy of bending with the wind. Whenever they have confronted a determined mass movement which is prepared to go to the end of the struggle against them they have often retreated.
Sometimes, they throw overboard the 'general' whose plans have been thwarted. This was the fate of Margaret Thatcher in the mighty poll-tax battle which she lost and as a result was subsequently ejected from office.
Such an outcome in this battle is not to be excluded. This is a government of liars, who have no mandate - the Liberal Democrats are doing exactly the opposite of what they promised before the general election - and deserves to be driven from office.
But on the other hand this is only possible on the basis of determined policies matched by bold leadership.
We cannot rely on a labour party traditionally known as defenders of the poor. New labour have transformed themselves into apologists of the city and big business
We cannot rely on Labour to oppose the cuts and austerity to the poor and workers.
Moreover, Alistair Darling, previously New Labour's chancellor, has admitted that the cuts that would have been inflicted if New Labour had been re-elected would have been more severe than Margaret Thatcher's when she was in power.
From the outset, this government has pursued a policy of 'shock and awe'. There are many who naively believe that these are always 'somebody else's cuts', in a situation like this.
A recent survey of top 100 FTSE chief executives has shown that in the last year these bosses have received, on average, 50% pay rises. Top company boss Martin Sorrell had the brass neck to complain that his £1 million basic salary was "very low"!
This at a time when many workers have had to endure pay freezes especially in the public sector. In some cases, such as Southampton City and Hampshire county council, workers face pay cuts. Most of these workers are already some of the lowest paid. In the private sector as well, those who have received any pay rises have seen them more than wiped out by price inflation.
It's a disgrace that the parasites at the top can award themselves such huge rises while at the same time calling for further cuts in public spending, leading to more job losses and attacks on workers' terms and conditions.
The fat cats have tried to defend themselves by claiming that their salaries and bonuses are set by independent pay review boards. But the bosses sit on each others' review boards where they recommend huge pay increases for each other!
They have even claimed that their massive pay rises are down to 'performance', yet the system they head is in crisis. If their pay is linked to performance they should be paying us for the mess they've created!
Cameron and Clegg have expressed 'concern' over pay inequalities but working class people won't be fooled by this. The Con-Dems are determined to make the poorest people in society pay for the bankers' greed and the failures of capitalism.
The growing polarisation in society really is starting to grow now. With peoples opinions eitehr falling in the have's or have nots. There is a growing feeling that we are not all in this together as the tories would have us believe . The poor will not take this laying down and will fight back.
I was listening to a programme on BBC 5 live last night and a debate in a church in Birmingham with Edwina Currie claiming taht she doesnt beleive we have real povety in Britain today she thinks its all down to peoples choices and lazy attitudes to not work. Well if there were the jobs there in the first place Edwina maybe we could all find jobs. But jobs that pay a decent living wage should be our aim not just jobs for jobs sake.
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