Britain

Welfare state ‘in critical condition’ 

Sunday 18 November 2012 by Malcolm Burns
 

Labour MP John McDonnell warned a packed meeting in Glasgow today the welfare state is reaching critical and could be destroyed before the next general election.

Addressing a meeting organised by the Scottish Labour Campaign for Socialism, he called for direct action within and outside the Labour Party to fight further imminent Tory cuts.

The Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington said:

“I believe there is a line in the sand which will be crossed in the next few weeks and within 18 months the welfare state could be eradicated.

“In three weeks’ time the budget statement by George Osborne will put in another £10 billion cuts in welfare and £40bn cuts in public expenditure overall.

“That’s partly in reaction to state of an economy which has a kind of corrugated trajectory, bumping along the bottom – and we’ll soon be into a triple-dip recession.”

Mr McDonnell warned:

“The Tories are not doing this out of panic but on a planned basis. They’re implementing the blueprint outlined by (right-wing economist) Robert Skidelsky in ‘Beyond the Welfare State’ which has its roots in the old neoliberal theories of Friedman and Hayek.

“When these arguments are made we need to confront them every time.”

Coatbridge & Chryston MSP Elaine Smith, who is convener of the Campaign for Socialism, said Johann Lamont’s recent “something for nothing” speech had prompted her to write a letter to Scottish Labour MSPs, MPs and MEPs.

The Morning Star

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3 Responses

  1. Why why are you hitting the disabled and oldies so hard…I would love to give you a challenge ..you get me back into work full time..get a care package for my disabled daughter to stay at home while I work…she has three days a week day centre ..I just can’t earn enough in those three days to survive …I get £58 a week carers allowance..which is a joke….if I put my daughter in a home and everyone put them in a home…this country couldn’t cope..about time you gave us carers a deceit benefit wage..you probably read this and really done give a dam….

  2. They attack the disabled because there is no corporate profit in them. Private health companies make huge profits but they are seen as a drain on the country and provide an easy scapegoat for evil actions. They are using the disabled to try and convince the masses, through bullshit corporate media, that caring for disabled people and treating them as valuable members of society is too expensive. they are fraudulently forwarding the idea that most disabled people are in fact over stating their disability and are capable of fully independent living.

    This Government is on a program of reducing the population to cattle and getting rid of the “inferior” specimens to keep their stock of workers cheap and scared. The same party destroyed manufacturing in Britain, which provided a greatly varied range of employment opportunities, and now they are determined to eradicate health service industry too. They must be stopped. I would say soon, but we cannot do this soon enough, it may already be too late.

    FU Cameron and your corporate whores.

  3. MPS with their £65,738 Pounds per Year are Not Experiencing Austerity and
    Certainly Not the Millionaires Cabinet

    Seeing how Supine this Country is I Sense the UK is in a Cuckooland Trance

    Things can Get Better or they can Get Worse if People Carry On like Political
    Sleepwalkers

    Save Guard and Rebuild the Welfare State it is this Rubbish Regime we are Better
    Off Without

    Stuff Capitalism and Stuff Free Market Evilnomics It is All about SLAVERY

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