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What the government has done to NHS Dentistry is what it wants to do to the rest of our public services. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 2nd March 2023 Every child in the UK is entitled to free treatment by a nonexistent dentist. Some people on benefits, pregnant women and those who have […]

INET Grantee & Academic Advisor Perry Mehrling talks about his new book "Money and Empire: Charles P. Kindleberger and the Dollar System"

[attention conservation notice: this post consists of lengthy opinionating with a smattering of thinly sketched arguments from psychological research, and a now-obscure science fiction novel. Also – if you really disliked M Night Shyamalan movies, even before the shtick became a shtick, you’re likely to be annoyed]. So Jonathan Chait wasn’t happy with the side-comment […]

During the recent wave of strike action across the NHS, I reflected on pivotal moments in my healthcare career that made it clear things were going disastrously wrong in terms of staffing and patient safety. After graduating with a nursing degree, I started out in a Mental Health Trust in London. It was there that […]

In April, the government plans to push millions more into fuel poverty by hiking energy bills — it shows just how much suffering the political elite is prepared to accept to prop up the privatised energy fiasco. As I write this article, we have just finished a Power to the People protest outside the offices of […]

When Enough is Enough rallies swept through the country last autumn, there was a feeling among those of us organising the Luton launch event that we were punching above our weight. We had formed our Luton Tribune Club only a few weeks prior. We lacked the established activist networks and student populations that characterised many […]

No Labels joins the Republicans They say they are going to do a “unity” ticket but in fact it is a third party ticket that will put Trump back in the White House. They aren’t idiots. I have to assume they know this. Here’s Tim Miller from a few months ago on this topic: Starting a new third party is all the rage these days, especially out here in Never Trumpistan. The Yang Gang is teaming up with some future former Republicans for the Forward Party. Rich people have burned given power couple Mark Penn and Nancy Jacobson $50 million to try and make a No Labels ticket happen. My friend Juleanna Glover made a (fairly serious) case for a Jon Stewart candidacy. Say the phrase “unity ticket” and clap three times and Bill Kristol might show up in your living room. The third party question is raised at all my book-tour stops. (Coming to a city near you!) And it is the subtext of every conversation with a lonely, politically homeless soul wondering What Are We Going to Do.

‘Is austerity over?’ the Times asked the current Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in 2019, when he was running to replace Theresa May as Tory Party leader. ‘I think austerity is coming to a close,’ he replied, ‘but the need for financial discipline is never over.’ Three years later, Hunt was the hatchet-man for what has widely […]

Medical school is widely regarded as one of the most difficult paths for a young person. Applicants require exceptional academic qualifications and, even then, medical school acceptance rates are extremely low. Public perception has always been that once you have got into medical school, life would get easier. The medical profession is, after all, a […]

Jeff Bezos is one of the celebrity capitalists of the twenty-first century. Alongside Elon Musk, he is arguably as well known in the public sphere for his yacht collection and his contributions to the billionaire space race. With a net worth of over £104 billion as of February 2023, he’s the third wealthiest person in […]

Last month saw the first national teachers’ strike across England and Wales in seven years. On 1 February itself, thousands turned out across both nations to support teachers — as well as university workers and civil servants — in the largest mass demonstrations of the strike wave so far. These National Education Union (NEU) strikes together with […]

As Europe was ravaged by austerity policies in the past decade, numerous left-wing insurgencies emerged to challenge for government: Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, La France Insoumise and, from 2015 to 2019, the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. Each came from outside the traditional centre-left and learned, to some degree, from the others. They […]

Every liberal democracy recognises, to some degree, that workers have a right to strike. That right is protected in law, sometimes in the constitution itself. Strikes are also one of the most common forms of disruptive collective protest. After a long decline in the number of strike days, many countries in the West have seen […]

Over the last decade, economic debate in Britain has been dominated by one subject: austerity. The size of a government’s budget deficit and total public debt have always been hot topics among economists, but since the financial crisis these metrics have acquired greater popular significance. Mentions of the word ‘austerity’ in books and articles, for […]

The consequences of austerity in Britain are now so apparent that even many of its erstwhile cheerleaders are, at last, sheepishly facing up to them. The last thirteen years of underfunding and neglect have left the NHS, in particular, in a state of near collapse. Accident and emergency departments are overwhelmed, and many patients find […]

May yet have reason to wet his pants It’s tough being a propagandist. Even on the nation’s premiere propaganda network. BBC soft-pedals it for less-engaged readers across the pond: Senate Republicans and Capitol police have criticised Fox News after one of its hosts aired previously unseen clips of the riot two years ago at Congress, and played down the violent disorder. Host Tucker Carlson showed the video on Monday night, arguing it “does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress”, but rather “mostly peaceful chaos”. A top congressional Republican gave Mr Carlson exclusive access to the video. That would be Republicans’ spineless Speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy. Carlson showed Capitol surveillance clips from areas where no violence was taking place. Elsewhere in the complex, rioters fought hand-to-hand with police, broke through windows, and ransacked offices as they and world saw through other surveillance footage and cell phone video shot by the insurrectionists themselves. Carlson described Trump fans in the halls as peaceful sightseers. Bullshit, said North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis (R).

How effectively do workers perserve their position relative to automation?

Yesterday (March 7, 2023) two big things happened. The first is that I got a lovely bunch of sunflower blooms for my birthday present. Which was ace. The second, the RBA Board wheeled out the governor to announce the 10th consecutive interest rate rise even though inflation has been falling for several months. The RBA has now become preposterous and the Government should definitely terminate the tenure of the Governor in September when his term is up for renewal. In the meantime, it should clean the RBA Board out, or introduce legislation that says each member including the governor gets the real disposable loss that they are imposing on the worker deducted in percentage terms from their own salaries. A further deduction would be made (quantum to be determined) for each percentage point the unemployment rate rises. That might give them pause for thought. The music segment will definitely lift your spirits after reading through the following gloom..…

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
RBA is engineering one of the largest cuts to real disposable income per capita in our history

 The Digital Age, knowledge revolution, and data harvesting are embraced by the Chinese leadership as national policy. This is an huge step in getting numbers on a whole system in real time.

New ‘Digital China’ vision a response to US tech curbs as authorities outline a ‘whole nation’ approach to going digital 

Asia Times
China’s grand plan for a world-beating digital future

The Fed's policy on inflation: "Facing higher prices? How about a side of lower incomes to go with that?!"

‘Tories are not very good at chasing out asylum seekers, we’ll be better at it’ sums up hideous message – and not a peep about safe and legal routes so asylum seekers don’t have to risk lives in boats Keir Starmer’s Labour has been rightly slammed today for responding to the Tories’ racist scapegoating of […]

Fox and the diary of a madwoman The newest document dump from the $1.6 billion Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against Fox is news the network’s viewers won’t see. A flood of incriminating texts and emails between Fox staffers reveals how much the network caved to pressure to feed viewers what they wanted to hear rather than the truth. The internal texts also reveal how much network top executives knew the 2020 election fraud narrative Donald Trump and network anchors promoted was bullshit. This text in particular will have a hard time finding its way to Tucker Carlson’s fans (Washington Post): “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” prime-time host Tucker Carlson texted a colleague on Jan. 4, 2021. “I truly can’t wait.” Carlson, who had shared private meetings with the president and defended him on-air, added in a text: “I hate him passionately. … What he’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.” Fox’s founder knew it too.

Three climate activists in two separate trials have been sent to jail by Judge Silas Reid using the entirely arbitrary powers of Contempt of Court, because they insisted on telling the jury that their protests had been motivated by the climate crisis and fuel poverty. Juries are an essential safeguard from injustice by the state. […]

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