I've Moved!

Site, not house!

Come over to AusterityBlows.com for fresh bloggin' vloggin' and erm...doggin?

Behold Your Royal Overlords!

Share at Will! 

It's All Going On in Greece!

Episode 2. Edits probably worse, but here, I present: It's All Going on in Greece. 

Share at Will

Austerity Blows

It's technically awful, but it's a start. 

Share at Will.

Life Savers, Go Home!

Anybody who's ever cried into their beer that "there's just too many immigrants" and we need to "send 'em packing", be careful what you wish for, because it might be about to come true. 


Not content with coming after our unsocial hours payments (and making it practically illegal to strike to defend them) the new, emboldened Tory Government wants to deport about 30,000 colleagues. It's not like we're short staffed or anything. 

You Can't Just Ask People Why They're Not From the European Economic Area.

Under the new rules, anyone who's not European, earning less than £35k and been here longer than 6 years will be out. Never mind if you save lives every day, we don't want your sort round 'ere. 

Unless you're some old Greek bloke who doesn't contribute, leeches off the taxpayer and is generally a bit of a racist about the place. Then you're fine. 

We'll Never Be Royals

Sending away foreign nurses won't mean more British ones. In fact, 37,000 wannabe student nurses were turned down last year due to course cuts. But why let the truth get in the way of a good yarn? 

Jamie is British. Becky is American. Erin is just all kinds of cute. 

The new rules will tear families, communities and services apart.  They won't actually produce a significant reduction in net migration, but that's not what these rules are about. They're about scapegoating immigrants as part of a propaganda offensive to normalise continued austerity. 




At the weekend, I and around a quarter of a million of my close personal friends marched in protest against the austerity offensive. It would be naive to think  we could just turn up and demand the representatives of global capitalism quit making working class people pay for their mistakes. 

Unlikely.

It all seems pretty overwhelming now, but so was standing up for the rights of gay people once upon a time. 



Besides, what choice do we have? Capitalism has become a dirty word. As Hayley Cropper put it:

I'll be honest, I had to google the word "anachronism". 

Share at Will!

Fight-Back Like a Filipino

A week is a long time in blogging. 

The Paul Dennis situation rumbles on. Priced out of legal action, democracy is only a thing if you can afford it. 

Medway Council's Value Election has created a democratic deficit which is dodgier than dodge so keep your eyes and ears peeled on that front. 

To the untrained eye this looks really boring but we know from experience, the seemingly boring is usually secretly dodgy. 

The Queen did a speech for working people, giving an overview of all the ways the government plans to shaft us this time. 

First we'll make it virtually impossible for anyone to go on strike, then we'll take away their unsocial hours payments. Sorted. 

I went to picket the Daily Mail HQ with a few hundred angry Filipinos. 

Papers like the Daily Mail exist to do the bidding of the super-rich. The super-rich don't actually read the Mail themselves. That would be degrading. 

But if they can shift public debate and concerns away from the real issues, like resources for the NHS and instead have everyone terrified of being left in the hands of a forgein killer when they go to hospital, well, so much the better. 

Gutted Daily Mail

When the Daily Mail started on the Filipino Community, they probably thought it was just the latest propaganda piece for their reactionary archives. 

They probably didn't realise they were picking on a well educated, organised community that wouldn't take their racism lying down. 

Take that Daily Mail

My friend Sal swapped a shift with me so I could go. Yesterday she was like: 

They might. They might not. Either way, the Mail are bullies and the only we way to stop bullies is to stand up to them. If the Queen's Speech was anything to go on, there'll be plenty more call for that sort of thing. 

Governments, companies and newspapers only get away with what they think they can. 

We don't have to accept dodgy election results, austerity and racism. The future is ours to win! 

Share at Will.

Love Eurovision, Hate Austerity.

Eurovision is pretty important to me. Last year, I was stuck on night duty and missed out which was devastating. None of my colleagues cared. 

This year, all's well as I have a clear two days off! Crisis averted. 


Unfortunately, you can't say the same for the Eurozone. The Eurozone is a real thing, it means all the countries which use Euros. Greece uses Euros. It's handy for going on holiday, but it's a really bad idea. 

I bought this Brie using Euros. They call it a Petit Brie but it was bigger than my head. And delish. 

Through no fault of their own, the Greek people have been hammered by the EU with savage austerity measures, to pay for a crisis they didn't create. Some people have been so shafted, they've had to give up their own kids. 

The suicide rate went up by 40% in two years. 

They've elected a government which is against austerity, which is good, but they can't get rid of austerity AND still use euros. The Euro-banks won't allow that. 

There are some people who really like the idea of people from different nations co-operating and getting along with each other. I like that too. 

But the EU isn't about that. It's a bosses club. It compels governments to embrace a market system in Health Care. It enshrines in law the privatisation of railways. It has forced working people across the continent to pay for the crisis of the rich. 

What would be great would be great would be international collaboration based on shared ownership. World Socialism, boom! 

Share at Will