Tag Archives: cuts

B y Jacob Lloyd Cardiff University UCU Neoliberal policies make university life harder for all, be it unmanageable staff workloads or increased student fees. These have been issues at Cardiff University, with controversies surrounding vain and costly capital projects, unsustainable international recruitment, exorbitant upper management salaries, and, most recently, the shock-and-awe announcement of hundreds of staff redundancies. The departments of ...

By Mariam Kamish “They don’t understand our lives – the people who make these decisions. Without the library, my granddaughter would be trying to concentrate on her homework, sat in front of the telly.” Caerphilly Labour council is closing ten libraries and three leisure centres. People are fighting to save Abertridwr library. ‘Use the hub library in Caerphilly’, the Labour ...

We need spending on welfare not warfare Make the super-rich pay not disabled people Since taking office, Keir Starmer’s Labour government have kept the Tory two-child benefit cap and reduced eligibility for pensioners’ winter fuel allowance. WASPI women were denied pension compensation. Starmer says he wants to “redesign the state”, this means massive cuts to public spending with the worst ...

By Mariam Kamish Mariam Kamish, Caerphilly Trades Union Council secretary “Blackwood Miners’ Institute is staying open”, I told the meeting, “because people fought for it. Why not Aber Library? If we fight, we can win.” Eagerness wiped frustration off the faces around the room. “Put down your details”, I said, writing my own and passing on the sheet. “You can’t ...

By Aris Prevost (Cardiff University Socialist Students) Cardiff University has announced a massive slate of cuts, with up to 400 jobs at risk, along with entire courses facing closure. The School of Music, Nursing, Modern Languages, and the School of Religion and Theology are set to be completely cut. And other courses are being combined into new schools, a cover ...

By Mariam Kamish (RCT Socialist Party) Like most councils in Britain, RCT Council faces a funding gap, after years of austerity under Tory and Labour governments. And councillors are proposing devastating cuts. The Labour council is trying to divide us. The consultation process asks you to explain how a cut or closure would affect you – and where you think ...

In an unusual move, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) publicly praised Rachel Reeves’s first Budget speech as ‘sustainable’. Meanwhile, the editorial of the main newspaper of British capitalism, the Financial Times, welcomed it as having “begun to fix the foundations of Britain’s economy from a difficult starting point”. When sources like this praise a Budget, working-class people can be certain ...

By Dave Reid Labour-run Caerphilly council has doubled down on its £45 million cuts agenda by announcing 600 job losses at the authority. This follows threats to close meals on wheels, Blackwood Miners’ Institute and Llancaiach Fawr house (as reported in The Socialist Issues 1287-1292). At its latest meeting the Labour administration gave in to pressure not to close the ...

Build the pressure! By Geraint Thomas “Save our ‘stute”, chanted the hundreds marching through the town of Blackwood against the eye-watering £45m cuts proposed by Caerphilly council (see article). Cheered on by passers by, onlookers, and cars, the march rally took place at the square overlooked by the threatened Blackwood miners’ institute.The working class people from across the community were ...

By Mariam Kamish, Secretary Caerphilly Trades Council (in a personal capacity) Caerphilly Council’s cabinet is proposing to close two South Wales Valleys cultural icons and end an essential service to the community. Not out of financial necessity – but on the advice of a consultancy firm. The plans – out for public consultation until 10 September – include the closure ...