The Milburn review presents itself as a plan to help young people into work, but Dr DYLAN MURPHY argues it is laying the groundwork for a harsher benefits regime
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EU puts the boot into steelworkers
The European Union has forbidden member governments from financially supporting their steel industries – spelling job losses and community devastation for thousands, says LAURENCE PLATT
Campaigners from across the continent will gather in Brussels on June 14 to oppose Europe’s accelerating militarisation and cuts to public services, write MAGGIE SIMPSON and BOB ORAM of No Cold War Britain
National co-ordinator for General Strike 100, HENRY FOWLER, continues his nationwide tour of partner organisations by visiting the Modern Records Centre at Warwick University
GEOFF BOTTOMS recalls meeting Fidel Castro in the ’90s after joining a Pastors for Peace caravan to Cuba, and reflects on how international support is still vital to help the island withstand economic warfare
The Ivors Academy’s hike in entry fees could turn this respected peer-assessed event into an exclusive preserve for those wealthy enough to compete, warns BEN LUNN
Peter Murrell’s weakness for the allure of prestige goods is symptomatic of modern consumer culture, says MATT KERR
THERE will be many in the labour movement, who while seeking effective ways to fight the continuing deindustrialisation of the British economy, still cling desperately to the notion that our membership of the EU is somehow or other a guarantee of jobs, even when those jobs are fast disappearing before their very eyes.
Such is the case with the steel industry. Any notion of “social Europe” coming to the rescue should have finally been dispelled in early 2012 when Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank, was able to assure US bankers and investors that “social Europe is already dead.”
Just how dead is now being demonstrated by the European Commission ignoring millions of citizens across the EU who do not wish to see TTIP imposed on member states with all the implications for our public services and is now dramatically underlined by recent EU statements on governmental support for the beleaguered steel industry.
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