“I would have quit this job months ago, but I’d be sanctioned by the Jobcentre”. That’s what one friend told me after working unpaid overtime every evening that week, on low pay that barely covered bills and rent. It’s a dilemma faced by everyone working in unsafe or illegal conditions. If you are fired then
Tag: Austerity
Get Boris done in
This text first appeared in the newly released Class War magazine. You can read it here. A year into the Boris Johnson administration and his incompetence is obvious. “Wouldn’t it be fun if we had the clown stuck on the zipwire as Prime Minister?” No, it wouldn’t. Typically, the Tories chose their leader because they
Time for artists’ Mutual Aid?
The following is the first text contributed to Freedom’s new Art & Anarchy column. It will run each third Sunday of a month. Artists from all fields are encouraged to contribute their artwork and texts. Get in touch: editor(at)freedompress.org.uk. (zb) The COVID-19 pandemic continues to change all our lives forever. “Social distancing” suggests that people
Domestic murder and migration
In October the UK’s domestic murder rate reached a five-year high. 173 people were killed in domestic violence related homicides over the last year, with women most often the targets (making up more than 60% of victims) and men most often the perpetrators (making up 93% of the defendants). Domestic murder — often referred to
Review: Skint Estate
Women like me: Carraway’s memoir of poverty, motherhood and survival is “the most important book on the impacts of austerity I have ever read”, writes Rowan Tallis Milligan. by Cash CarrawayEbury Press, 2019ISBN: 978-1529103373368pp£14.99 hardback This is not poverty porn. I ummed and aahhed about writing this book review for a while now. I have
The Tory legacy: a lost decade and over 130,000 deaths through austerity
Since 2001 around 100 people have been killed by terrorists in the UK. Since the Tories came to power in 2010 their austerity regime has resulted in at least 130,000 preventable deaths according to reports.
The British general election of 2019 finally begins
As mentioned in a recent column and throughout Brexit, the divisions in the UK on membership of the European Union is a Conservative Party issue that the public was invited to get itself embroiled in. The public obliged but in doing so many people voted in such a way to cause the maximum damage to
Silent givers: How the government manipulates charity
A recent furore in Scotland has focused on the Foreign Office playing piggy bank to a small ‘anti-fake news’ charity, but State policy is continually puppeteering NGOs in far grander and more insidious ways — and it has recently gotten considerably worse. Anyone attempting to set up a charity in Britain will have run up against
Disabled People Against Cuts take action at Tory conference
Last Wednesday about 40 activists from Disabled People Against Cuts gathered to protest at the Tory party Conference and bring attention to the continuous attacks they have faced for the last 8 years. The activists came from many parts of the country including Brighton, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bristol, Berkshire, London, Manchester, Norfolk, Northampton, Preston Stafford, Warwickshire,
Wealth blinds our rulers to the truth about homelessness
Recently the National Audit Office (NAO) published a study which was of surprise to no-one — notwithstanding the blustering pretend humbug of neoliberals and Tories — showing that welfare cuts cause homelessness to rise. Not so long ago, this would have been a “well duh” report which would itself have risked being written off as