Welfare

David Miliband

Len McCluskey is right to threaten Miliband with disaffiliation from Labour

1 Comment / Labour, Trade unions, Welfare /

Len McCluskey, General Secretary of Unite, has given the strongest indication yet that his union may consider disaffiliating from Labour. At this stage, it’s not much more than a shot across Miliband’s bow as McCluskey attempts to pull Labour’s lax policymaking leftwards. Unite is highly unlikely to rock the boat before the next election. But […]

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Palace_of_Westminster,_London_-_Feb_2007

Labour has betrayed its supporters by voting for the welfare cap

Leave a Comment / Labour, Left Unity, Welfare /

The Tory austerity drive – bound up as it is in the barefaced lie that Britain was brought low in 2008 by benefit scroungers and not reckless bankers – was never about fixing the economy, it is about shrinking the state. As such, it was hardly surprising to see Cameron’s Etonian class warriors lining up

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Salman Shaheen Sky News

Appearance on Sky News: Debating Dan Hodges on Miliband’s welfare reform plans

Leave a Comment / Economics, Labour, Left Unity, Media, Salman Shaheen, Welfare /

I was on the Boulton & Co show on Sky News last week, debating the Telegraph’s Dan Hodges on Ed Miliband’s welfare reform plans. Both Hodges and I have traditionally been critical of Miliband, but from opposite directions. Now Hodges appears to be warming up to Miliband as he lurches to the right over welfare,

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LBC

Appearance on LBC Radio: Iain Dale interviews me on Miliband’s welfare reform plans

Leave a Comment / Cuts, Left Unity, Media, Salman Shaheen, Socialism, Welfare /

It was an action-packed day for Ed Miliband last Thursday, ripping up every last shred of hope those of us on the left had that he might provide some principled opposition to Tory-led austerity. And it was an action-packed day for me, with appearances on Sky News and LBC Radio criticising Miliband’s welfare reform plans

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Thatcher

Did Thatcher make Britain a more selfish country?

Leave a Comment / Class, Conservatives, Cuts, Society, Welfare /

It’s a curious irony that with the death of Margaret Thatcher and the release of Ken Loach’s The Spirit of ’45, the two great ideological consensuses of the 20th century should return to sharp focus at the same time. Both ideologies emerged from a country in ruins. On the one hand, a spirit of unity,

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Iain Duncan Smith

The government of millionaires needs to wake up to the lives of millions

Leave a Comment / Conservatives, Poverty, Welfare /

After Iain Duncan Smith claimed he could live on £53 a week in benefits instead of his £1581 a week post-tax salary, he was challenged by an online petition to put his money where his mouth is. Within a day the petition attracted more than 200,000 signatures. Petitions are hardly the strongest form of political

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Left Unity

Left Unity: A vital project for the age of austerity

1 Comment / Afghanistan, Conservatives, Economics, Iraq, Labour, Poverty, War, Welfare /

Sixteen years of age, a naive young activist who’d read a bit of Marx and wanted to make the world a better place, I was walking along Lowestoft high street when I encountered a stall of scruffy-looking men campaigning against the impending Afghanistan war who were saying all the things I identified with. They called

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