Rishi Sunak Versus Reality
It was obvious from the start that Covid-19 would have longlasting impacts on the British economy, but Rishi Sunak has insisted on treating it as a temporary blip – and now fantasises about pulling support altogether.
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Ko Leik Pya works as a teacher and writer in the UK and Myanmar. He writes here under a pseudonym.
It was obvious from the start that Covid-19 would have longlasting impacts on the British economy, but Rishi Sunak has insisted on treating it as a temporary blip – and now fantasises about pulling support altogether.
This week, Parliament resisted the urge to make Universal Credit recipients more than £1,000 a year worse off in the midst of a pandemic – but the system still leaves millions at or below the poverty line.
Yesterday, Conservative MPs voted against excluding the Health Service from future trade deals. After their performative support for NHS staff this year, the vote was nothing short of a betrayal.
Joe Biden’s inauguration has been heralded as a victory for environmentalists – but his presidency will prove definitively that there are no moderate solutions to the climate crisis. A Green New Deal is our only hope.
DSA’s Carlos Ramirez-Rosa speaks to Tribune about the future of the growing socialist movement in the United States after Donald Trump – and how the Left should approach the Biden administration.
Last year’s Black Lives Matter protests produced a tenuous alliance between street radicals and multinational corporations. The defeat of Donald Trump marks the end of that road – but not of the cause.
Shami Chakrabarti on the dangers of the ‘Spy Cops’ and Overseas Operations Bills, the Tory culture war against human rights – and why the Labour Party is too scared to stand up to it.
The UK now has the highest Covid-19 death rate in the world. Boris Johnson’s strategy has failed, and the vaccine isn’t a silver bullet – we need a plan for Zero Covid that puts lives and livelihoods first.
Like its near-neighbour Preston, Salford’s left-leaning council has put socialist policies into practice at a local level – and been rewarded with public housing, well-paying jobs, insourcing and a greener city.
As musicians struggle through the pandemic, attention has turned to the exploitative practices of Spotify – which often pays as little as $0.00318 per stream. Now, artists are unionising and demanding better.
As Covid forces students to pay £9,250 for online learning, and more to line the pockets of landlords, many are organising to ensure grade justice for those disadvantaged – despite the best efforts of university management.
After a string of recent deals with the NHS, Amazon is now exploring the idea of launching pharmacies in the UK – and its plan to plunder healthcare for profits and data should worry us all.
Ten million adults and four million children live in poverty in Britain, one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Right-wingers argue that we can’t afford to tackle this scandal – but the truth is, we can’t afford not to.
Forty years ago today, a fire at a house party in New Cross killed 13 young black people. The racism behind the tragedy politicised a generation – and continues to shape modern Britain.
As Britain’s Covid death toll exceeds 100,000, the government has set out to blame the public – but from the very beginning its recklessness, ineptitude and cronyism have paved the way for this tragedy.
Public spending cuts have closed almost 800 libraries in the past decade – a fifth of the UK’s total. It is a campaign of vandalism against our culture and communities led by the Tory government.
This week, fire service employers withdrew from a safety agreement that protected firefighters during the Covid-19 pandemic – it is just the latest example of unscrupulous bosses using a crisis to attack workers’ rights.
Poet John Cooper Clarke’s memoirs are an addictively readable set-text of a drug-fuelled, working-class and autodidactic life.
The government is pinning all of its hopes on vaccine rollout – but by refusing to take effective measures to ensure the lower-paid can stay home in the meantime, they are guaranteeing further weeks of Covid disaster.
The appointment of Tory donor and right-wing think-tanker Richard Sharp as BBC Chair strengthens the party’s grip on the broadcaster – and continues a long history of political concerns trumping the public interest.