Most people are almost totally disinterested in local politics. Many people don’t bother to vote in local elections; most probably couldn’t tell you who their councillor is. or which tier of local government is responsible for which services, or which political party runs their local council.

The only exceptions are the London boroughs which attract sensational and distorted media coverage because of their so- called “loony left” policies. The tabloid newspapers are, in general, not the slightest bit interested in what councils do or don’t do about council housing or social services, but let any council give a few pounds to a gay or lesbian group and it becomes front page news. It is little wonder, therefore, that Kin- nock is doing all that he can to dissociate himself from them since his overriding concern is the achievement of political power no matter what policies he has to ditch on the way to Number Ten.



In fact local authorities do affect our lives in important ways. They are responsible for providing education, social services, housing, home helps and day centres. They maintain the roads and remove the rubbish. They provide leisure and recreational facilities — parks, swimming pools, libraries and community centres. They regulate the environment in which we live by granting planning permission to builders.



But local authorities are important for another reason: they are the only other elected authority besides central government. This does not mean that they are especially democratic however. Most councils are out of touch with the needs of workers; they are dominated by representatives of the business community and operate in their interests. It is little wonder that most people are not interested in local politics, since it makes very little difference which party controls the council — life will go on pretty much as before…

 An increasing number of older people in the UK are being forced to postpone retirement and continue working as a result of the cost-of-living crisis, new research has suggested.

The number of individuals aged over 70 who are still working jumped by 61% last year compared to a decade ago, according to Rest Less, an online community that offers advice to older workers.

The data released ahead of International Workers’ Day suggests that more than 446,600 people over 70 had yet to retire last year, which compares to 277,926 in 2012.

“We see many older workers today who are struggling to make ends meet amidst the cost-of-living crisis, with inadequate retirement savings meaning they must work in order to survive financially,” said Stuart Lewis, the chief executive of Rest Less.

The cost of living has risen sharply in the UK over the past two years. The annual rate of inflation peaked at 11.1% last October, a 41-year high, before easing in subsequent months. In March it was 10.1%, the seventh successive month of double-digit inflation, according to official data.

The current retirement age for men and women in the UK is 66 but it will gradually increase to 68 by 2046.

Norway and Iceland currently have the highest retirement age in the EU at 67. Greece, Italy, Luxembourg and Slovenia have the lowest retirement age in the bloc at 62.

RT 2/5/23

DC

See also: Work Until You Drop SOYMB 29/12/22

https://soymb.com/2022/12/work-until-you-drop.html

India must boost its defensive and offensive capabilities in the space domain, as the “future lies in having space-based platforms,” Air Chief Marshal Vivek Ram Chaudhari told a national security and geopolitics forum on Saturday.

“In the future, instead of having purely land-based offensive systems, we should also have space-based offensive systems,” Chaudhari , said according to The Economic Times.

The competition and rivalry between the global powers in space “will have its effects across all other domains of warfare,” he said, predicting that his Air Force will soon turn into an Air Space Force, and “will be called upon to take part in space situational awareness, space denial exercises or space control exercises.”

“The race to weaponise space has already started and the day is not far when our next war would spread across all domains of land, sea, air, cyber and space,” the air force chief warned back in March. On Saturday he stated that the race has actually been ongoing ever since Nazi Germany first launched its V-2 rocket almost 80 years ago.

India’s Chief of Defense Staff, General Anil Chauhan, also recently stated that the “military applications of space is the dominant discourse from which we cannot remain divorced.”

“The aim for all of us should be developing dual-use platforms with special focus on incorporating cutting-edge technology,” he told the Indian DefSpace Symposium on April 1.

It remains unclear what kind of futuristic space weapons the military seeks to obtain, but Chaudhari said India should capitalise on the success of its 2019 anti-satellite missile test. The so-called Mission Shakti destroyed a satellite some 300km away in low-Earth orbit and was hailed at the time as an “unprecedented achievement” by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India has become the fourth “space superpower” after the US, Russia, and China, to openly demonstrate its ASAT missile capability. The space club members have regularly accused each other of weaponising space, voicing suspicions over secretive military launches and dual-purpose tests, but have never admitted to possessing any orbital weapons systems.

RT 30/4/23

DC

 Less than one year on from its creation, the US Space Force is contemplating a future in which it provides security for private sector investments between Earth and the Moon against a backdrop of conflict with Russia and China.

“Maybe not today or tomorrow or 10 years from now, but I do believe that if you look toward a space economy that’s gonna be over $1 trillion between here and the Moon, I really believe there’s going to be a role for enhanced security in that domain and a role of the Space Force to provide that stability across the domain,” General John Raymond said Tuesday in a National Defence University Foundation webcast.

Raymond, the military’s chief of space operations, noted that the Space Force aims to celebrate its first birthday on December 20 by swearing in a newly arrived astronaut on the International Space Station as a member of its force. For now, the force is focused on ensuring that the US maintains a competitive advantage in space and that all other branches of the military have access to those capabilities without disruption – as they have since the Gulf War.

“The challenge is, our adversaries have had a front-row seat on it,” Raymond said. “They are developing threats to deny us that advantage, so it’s no longer to think of space as a benign domain and how do I integrate space in this benign domain. You have to treat it as a war fighting domain, and you have to look at what else space can do besides making the other domains more effective. We want to continue to do that, but we also want to develop independent options from the space domain, which we think can help amplify the deterrence message.”

Raymond added that “space underpins every bit of our national power,” providing capabilities that “fuel our American way of life and our American way of war. It is clear today that it’s a war fighting domain – just like land, air and sea.”

Making such a statement five or six years ago in a public setting wouldn’t have been allowed, Raymond said, because the US didn’t want space to become a war fighting domain. “We still frankly don’t today, but adversaries have a vote, and clearly Russia and China are developing capabilities . . . that would threaten our ability to access our space capabilities,” he said.

The Space Force aims to keep itself lean, with a headquarters staff of about 600 at the Pentagon, and rely on working with allies and private industry to move with the speed necessary to maintain its competitive advantages, Raymond said. For instance, the force just came to an agreement with Norway to put two hosted payloads on a Norwegian satellite, and it will have a payload going up on a Japanese GPS-augmentation satellite.

“We haven’t had the partnerships in space . . . because in the past, we really didn’t need to,” Raymond said. “It was a benign, peaceful domain, and there wasn’t a threat. That’s not the case today, and we’re hard at work at developing those partnerships.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last November that Washington saw space as a “theatre of military operations,” and development of the US Space Force posed a threat to Russia. He said Russia opposed militarisation of space, but steps by the US and NATO forced Moscow to strengthen its orbital group and space industry as a whole.

RT 28/10/20

DC

 Circana proclaims itself, ‘The world’s leading advisor on the complexities of consumer behaviour… Real-time visibility into consumers and markets in 23 countries, representing 75% of the world’s GDP · Measurement of $4T+ in global consumer spend.’

Would there be any necessity for companies like this in a socialist society? Answers on a postcard…

A Circana report quoted in European Supermarket Magazine (26/4/23), says that sales across the largest markets in Europe of groceries has fallen.

Reason? High inflation. Quelle surprise!

Circana posits a, ‘more price-aware, savvy and forward-looking consumer who is seeking to adapt what they buy and how they consume.’ 

‘86% of European shoppers have reported changes to their ability to buy and willingness to pay being stretched,’ it says.

Consumers are having to ‘make tough decisions.’ Fripperies are out, essential items are the new reality. For very many of the global working class,

that ain’t nothing new.

A Circana SVP said, ‘We’re forecasting unit demand to decline sharply in food staples, where price inflation continues to be the most intense.’

Really? Ya think?

Whilst volume has decreased, value sales rose considerably ‘as a direct result of record inflation.’

The really ‘savvy and forward looking consumer’ (member of the exploited class) would be someone who realises that the replacement of capitalism with a money-free, class-free society where goods are produced for use, not profit,  is long overdue.

DC

https://www.esmmagazine.com/retail/unit-sales-decline-1-1-across-european-markets-amid-high-inflation-circana-238647

 One man is king only because other men stand in the relation of subjects to him. They, on the contrary, imagine they are subjects because he is the king.

Karl Marx. Footnote. Capital Volume One 

‘Many UK people will have struggled last month to escape the stadium-volume hullabaloo as the superannuated CEO of The Firm finally hung up her tiara and departed from her pampered life of ‘devoted service’, triggering a long-prepared barrage of nauseating hagiographies, crocodile tears and posturing TV gravitas. At least workers got an extra bank holiday out of it, which helped put the fun back into ‘state funeral’. Meanwhile certain activists, as reported in the Guardian, were keeping a very low profile, for fear of being trolled, cancelled or petrol bombed for the political viewpoint that, for the time being anyway, dared not speak its name: republicanism, the quest for the abolition of the monarchy. ‘

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2022/10/neither-monarchy-nor-republic-but.html

“Next week’s coronation of King Charles III will feature an invitation for all British people to swear their allegiance to the new monarch and his descendants in what organizers have billed as a “chorus of millions.”

The ceremony has been revised to include a “homage of the people,” rather than the traditional “homage of peers” in which dukes pledge their allegiance to the sovereign, according to plans announced on Saturday by the Church of England. 

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby will call upon “all persons of goodwill” in the UK and its territories – those attending the ceremony at Westminster Abbey and those watching on television or the  internet – to recite the following vows: “I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty and to your heirs and successors according to the law, so help me God.” The archbishop will then proclaim, “God save the king” and ask all to respond: “God save King Charles. Long live King Charles. May the king live forever.”

The public pledge is among several tweaks to a ceremony with ancient traditions, some of which date back nearly half a millennium. “Our hope is at that point, when the archbishop invites people to join in, that people wherever they are, if they’re watching at home on their own, watching the telly, will say it out loud – this sense of a great cry around the nation and around the world of support for the king,” a Lambeth Palace spokesperson said.

Among other changes to the traditional ceremony, the coronation will feature female clergy taking a prominent role and leaders of other faiths presenting the king with regalia for the events, including his robe, ring and bracelets. 

A hymn will be sung in Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic. The service will celebrate tradition while adding “new elements that reflect the diversity of our contemporary society,” the archbishop said.

However, King Charles III will take the traditional oaths, including a pledge to maintain “the Protestant Reformed religion.” 

The archbishop will preface the oath by saying that the Church of England will seek to foster an environment where “people of all faiths and beliefs may live freely.”

RT 30/4/23

DC

The First of May is the day when the workers’ movement celebrates its internationalism, and affirms the unity of their class across all boundaries. The Socialist Party of Great Britain celebrate the day in those terms. But the tradition has been debased by modern realities. 

Mayday as a cultural event seems to be dying. It has become increasingly dissociated from the cultural horizon of the vast majority of the working class. If they demonstrate on Mayday at all it is for the wrong motives. Mayday has fallen into the hands of the Labour hierarchy and its trade-unionist minions, and has become a celebration of their organisations, a day for Labourite triumph and self-congratulation, an act of lick-spittlery, and kow-towing to their political masters .The reason why Mayday has become dissociated from relevance and meaning to most working class lives is that the bodies associated with it, and with the whole way of life it typifies, have become divorced from the lived and meaningful experience of most workers. The process is one of continual removal of the working class from any real control over their own economic lives, alienating institutions they created into state domination. As such people become increasingly alienated from the cultural manifestations of workerdom, enabling Labour and their union lackeys to make Mayday their day. 

However, all need not be lost. Remembering that 364 days a year belong to their employers, workers can take steps towards wrenching Mayday from the grasp of alienated union officialdom, and making Mayday our day once more.Mayday belongs to the workers. Although that means admitting that the rest of the year belongs to the capitalists it also means that we know who we are.That Mayday is commemorated by workers across the globe reminds us that we have a world to win and that we can win it.The task confronting us is to build up a union of the working class, organised to put an end to the property system that divides and oppresses

1st May, 2010 SOYMB

Alan Johnstone

 Food prices in France and Spain are continuing their relentless rise, as the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation rages across the EU, according to data published by Bloomberg on Monday.

The cost of the main groceries needed to cook the French dish coq-au-vin soared 15.4% in March to more than €19 ($21) compared to the same period a year ago, according to data from the national statistics office and the Ministry of Agriculture and Nutrition.

France is the top consumer of poultry in the EU. The cost of chicken, the main ingredient in the traditional dish, surged by about 18%, carrots by 33.5%, butter gained 23.9% and even wine, which saw the slowest price increase, soared by 8.4% on an annual basis.

The cost-of-living crisis has deepened in France. According to a recent report by statistics agency INSEE, inflation in the Eurozone’s second-largest economy has continued at a record pace, and faster than expected in February, largely due to surging food prices. Food, services, and manufactured goods have been the main contributors to inflation.

French authorities previously introduced a so-called “anti-inflation food basket” comprising about 50 basic items, and have obliged large retailers not to hike prices on these essentials.

Meanwhile, the prices of the key ingredients used in the Spanish dish paella have also surged, Bloomberg’s monthly Paella Index, based on data provided by Spain’s National Statistics Institute showed. Cooking the Spanish signature dish is now 18.5% more expensive than a year ago. The price of olive oil has jumped 32.1%, while vegetables and legume prices are up 27.8% on the year, and 5.7% on a monthly basis. Rice prices have risen 22.1% from a year ago.

The Spanish Agrarian Association of Young Farmers is warning of further price hikes due to likely olive oil shortages following last year’s drought, as yields are already significantly down in Spain, the world’s largest olive oil producer.

Rice prices may also increase due to a 40% year-on-year decline in production in 2022, the worst on record according to the Rice Federation of the Isla Mayor municipality, Spain’s leading producer of the crop.

RT 20/4/23

DC

 Since inflation is a monetary question and nothing but a monetary question, it cannot be understood without first knowing what money is. To most people money is the notes and coins they use to buy things, a convenient technical device for ensuring the smooth exchange and distribution of goods. While it is indeed such a medium of exchange, the currency we use today is not, strictly speaking, money at all, but only tokens for it. But to explain money it is convenient to start with this role of medium of exchange…

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-evolution-of-money-from-barter-to.html

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-evolution-of-money-from-barter-to_22.html

 Nearly seven in 10 Americans hold negative views about the US economy and two-thirds say inflation is outpacing their wages, according to a stunning survey published Tuesday.

A total of 69% say they are downbeat about the country’s financial shape now and in the future, the highest percentage in the 17-year history of the CNBC All-America Economic Survey.

For context, pessimism about the current and future economy stood at 37% in April 2021 and rose to 68% in July 2022, roughly tracking with a spike in annual inflation from 4.2% in April 2021 to a four-decade high of 9.1% in June 2022.