The Socialist Party stands in solidarity with the striking nurses and all other working people who have felt the need to take industrial action. 

The Royal College of Nursing said its members had been given no choice after ministers refused to reopen pay talks. The RCN has to ensure life-preserving care continues during the 12-hour strike and vital urgent care such as chemotherapy and kidney dialysis along with intensive and critical care, children’s accident and emergency and hospital neonatal units, but not routine treatment as in pre-booked appointments such as hernia repair, hip replacements or outpatient clinics.

The RCN’s general secretary, Pat Cullen explained, “Nurses are not relishing this,” she said. “We are acting with a very heavy heart…Nursing staff on picket lines is a sign of failure on the part of governments.”

 Coal exporters from Australia reaped as much as $45bn in windfall gain in the 2021-22 year, with a similar bonanza likely this year.

The Australia Institute has said in a report that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and subsequent disruption to energy markets alone had delivered between $13bn and $23bn of gains to coal companies. All up, those gains totalled between $39bn and $45bn.

“This research shows it’s not just gas exporters who have been reaping the benefit of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” said Richard Denniss, executive director of the Australia Institute. “Coal companies have also been making a killing while households and businesses are slugged with surging prices for Australian energy.”

Australia’s coal exporters made windfall gain of $45bn last year, report estimates | Coal | The Guardian

Winston Churchill once responded to a grammatical criticism, up with it I will not put. Party members of the World Socialist Movement are constantly asking of workers, why are you content to put up with this continued oppression by the capitalist class? The current wave of strikes in the UK by groups of workers is reminiscent of 1970’s industrial relations. The United Kingdom, disunited kingdom more like, is the sixth largest economy in the world. Perhaps it’s time for an up to date version of Friedrich Engels classic, “The Condition of the Working Class in 1844.” Forget Back to the Future: we are rapidly transitioning back to Hobbes life of nasty, brutish and short.

“Soaring prices, inflation, and unemployment are pushing up deprivation levels, the New Economics Foundation says The UK is on the cusp of the greatest cost-of-living crisis in modern times, with the number of those below the poverty line rising, according to a report by the New Economics Foundation (NEF).

In a study released on Monday, the think tank said that 30 million people in Britain will be unable to afford what the public considers to be a decent standard of living by the time the current Parliament ends in 2024.

Rising prices, below-inflation increases in earnings, and projected increases in unemployment will result in 43% of households lacking the resources to put enough food on the table or buy new clothes, the report said.

According to the NEF’s calculations, by 2024, almost 90% of single parents and 50% of workers with children will fall below the minimum income standard. On average, those falling below the threshold for a decent standard of living will be short by £10,000 ($12,422) a year, the research shows.

“A decade of cuts, freezes, caps, and haphazard migration between systems left the UK with one of the weakest safety nets, both among developed countries globally, as well as in the UK’s history,” NEF economist Sam Tims wrote. “Millions of families were already living in avoidable deprivation and hardship but … the day-to-day experience of low-income families is set to become even more desperate.”

Official figures show that 22% of Britons are currently living below the poverty line because they are getting by on less than 60% of the median household income.”

RT 8\12\22

Dave C.

 Back in the Sixties, and beyond, there was a popular Pete Seegar protest song: Where Have All The Flowers Gone. It contains the line: ‘Oh, When will you ever learn?

Oh, When will you ever learn?’ The double question expressing exasperation at the senseless deaths of young men in senseless conflicts.

If the report, quoted by RT, but taken from The Times, is correct then Marx’s adage about history repeating itself, but the second time as farce, begins not to look applicable in this instance. Five will get you ten that there are ‘advisers’ from one or more states with a geo-political interest in sustaining this particular conflict embedded in Ukraine.

Wars are not the business of the working class; the effects falling most heavily upon them.

Neither is supporting the interests of the capitalist class the business of the working class.

Time to start supporting yourselves.

“British Royal Marines conducted high-risk operations in Ukraine in April, Lieutenant General Robert Magowan has admitted, according to a report in The Times on Tuesday.

Russia has consistently warned that NATO troops have been active in the conflict, but these statements have been dismissed by Western analysts and media.

Members of 45 Commando Group of the Royal Marines left Ukraine in January after evacuating the British embassy in Kiev to Poland. However, some 300 members of the elite unit were sent back into the country in April to reestablish the British mission in Kiev, before going on to conduct “other discreet operations,” Magowan wrote in the force’s official journal, The Globe and Laurel, the newspaper said.

These operations took place “in a hugely sensitive environment and with a high level of political and military risk,” Magowan, who formerly served as commandant general of the Royal Marines and is now deputy chief of Defense Staff at the Ministry of Defense, stated. 

While Magowan did not elaborate on what kind of missions the commandos carried out, his statement marks the first time that the UK has admitted its troops conducted special operations in Ukraine. The Ministry of Defense refused to confirm earlier accounts of British special forces training Ukrainian troops in Kiev in April.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the conflict in Ukraine as one between Russia and the “entire Western military machine,” and claimed in September that there are entire military units in Ukraine “under the de-facto command of Western advisers.”

Putin’s words were rejected by Western media outlets. “There is no evidence of NATO ground forces participating in Ukraine,” Edward Arnold of the Royal United Services Institute think tank told the BBC at the time. “Nor of NATO commanders directing Ukrainian units on the battlefield. There is also a very low likelihood of this happening in the future as Nato seeks to mitigate escalation risks.”

Magowan’s admission proves Arnold incorrect, but the UK is not the only NATO country to acknowledge the presence of its forces in Ukraine. An unnamed Pentagon official told reporters in October that an unspecified number of US troops were inspecting American arms shipments somewhere within Ukraine.”

RT 13/12/22

Dave C.

 While Rishi Sunak wallowed in the praise of his fellow Tories for reinforcing the hostile environment towards migrants crossing the Channel, news is breaking of a boat tragedy. The number of deaths has not been ascertained as yet.  

Suella Braverman was quick to express her sorrow and shed her crocodile tears, ignoring the fact that it has been UK policy which has led to people risking their lives to reach the UK so to be able to lodge asylum claims.

 While Rishi Sunak wallowed in the praise of his fellow Tories for reinforcing the hostile environment towards migrants crossing the Channel, news is breaking of a boat tragedy. The number of deaths has not been ascertained as yet.  

Suella Braverman was quick to express her sorrow and shed her crocodile tears, ignoring the fact that it has been UK policy which has led to people risking their lives to reach the UK so to be able to lodge asylum claims.

 Never ever any jail time. 

Denmark’s largest bank Danske bank pleaded guilty to bank fraud and agreed to forfeit $2 billion (€1.88 billion) after it admitted defrauding American banks between 2008 and 2016 by allowing, through its Estonia branch, access to US banks for high-risk customers who were neither Estonian nor residents of Estonia, including some in Russia.

Suspicious transactions worth some €200 billion ($212 billion) were made during that period from the accounts of 15,000 non-resident clients, according to a 2018 internal report. The bank said it was unable to determine where the money came from, noting that some 23% of incoming funds were received from Russia. Prosecutors accused the bank’s Estonia branch of luring clients by promises of large transfers with little oversight. The Justice Department added that the bank’s employees also concealed the nature of the illicit transactions by utilizing shell companies to hide the funds’ ownership.

US: Danish Danske bank pleads guilty in fraud case – DW – 12/13/2022

 The media headlines of Pakistan’s floods have disappeared but the tragic consequences continue. An estimated 33 million people have been affected, of which 20 million are still living in dire conditions.

It’s been almost six months since the floods in Pakistan, and homes and farmland in many parts of the country remain underwater. In the areas where floods are receding, health and hygiene concerns including cholera, dengue, and malaria, pose severe threats to people’s well-being. Many areas also have been reporting cases of scabies, especially in children as they play in the floodwater.

Contaminated water is another big issue, especially in Sindh where the quality of water in the entire region is exceptionally poor. The few handpumps that existed to offer clean water were severely damaged during the floods.

Shelter continues to be a top priority. Many people were forced to leave their flooded homes and retreat to the nearest evacuation centre. Some resorted to sleeping on the roadside – unprotected and with barely any resources to build a roof over their heads. 

Pakistan floods: Six months on, humanitarian needs remain dire – Pakistan | ReliefWeb

 Britain is the only G-7 nation whose GDP is still lower than before the pandemic— no more does it seem like the 6th richest country in the world,  as its economic performance comes to resemble that of an Eastern European country with an emerging economy. Government figures show the following:

+ the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 11.1% in October, a 41-year high,

+ the UK’s top energy companies are set to make almost $200bn/$245bn in excess profits over the next 2 years. In the same time energy bills are set to rise to their highest levels in 40 years causing a cost of living crisis. Average bills for electricity and home-heating natural gas have doubled in the last year and are expected to rise further in April. The government does nothing about this bare-faced price gouging,

+ the purchasing power of the pound decreased by 13.20% in 2022 compared to 2021, fuelling a resulting rise in import prices,

+ 1 in 6 British households rely on some form of social welfare,

+ almost a third of British children live in poverty,

+ the number of children eligible for government-funded free school meals is just under 25%,

+ 1in 4 households are in financial difficulty or on the verge of it,

+ almost 1 in 10 households have failed to pay bills,

+ in the 12 months to March 2022, 2.1m emergency food parcels were distributed by a continuously expanding web of more than 2,000 food banks — an increase of approximately 1 million from 2014-15, according to the food-bank organizing charity, the Trussell Trust. This need is driven by spiraling food and energy prices (the price of cooking oil and pasta, for example, has risen 60% in the last year), and plunging wages.

+the sharp decline in public services and public sector wages has ensued in months of industrial strikes by train workers, postal workers, London bus drivers, university teachers and staff, paramedics and ambulance drivers, road workers, workers at Heathrow airport, passport and visa staff, courthouse staff, with nurses due to have their first ever strike beginning on 15 December. This has all the makings of a general strike as the winter starts to intensify.

The Tory government blames the war in Ukraine and the pandemic for causing these problems, without however fooling too many Brits as people realize several other countries have also had to deal with the consequences of the war and the pandemic.

Taken from here

The Twilight Zone of the UK’s Holographic Politics – CounterPunch.org

According to both Forbes and Bloomberg, the top spot has now been taken by Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of luxury goods group LVMH.

 Bernard Arnault has a value of $188bn.