Travellers Beware

According to the AA the average price of a litre of fuel in Britain will rise from £1.26 to £1.30 on January 4. American householders are now typically paying a fraction of the price at just over 50p a litre, according to the latest figures. And EU figures show fuel prices in Britain have been the highest in Europe. This time last year petrol was at £1.08 a litre and diesel at £1.09. In Stornoway, the typical price of a litre of unleaded will go up from £1.37 to over £1.40 with diesel up from £1.39 to £1.43.
Luke Bosdet, of the AA, said: “The facts are that fuel is being taxed like a luxury item such as champagne. But it is a necessity for everyone, from the youngster starting his first job, to volunteer drivers, to cabbies, and lorry drivers. The duty on fuel is an unfair tax as it hits everyone the same. There is no means-testing built in so it affects people that can least afford it. Enough is enough.”


Inflation-busting rises in rail fares took effect yesterday with some mainline season tickets going up almost 13%. Overall, main-line fares rose by an average of 6.2%, with regulated fares, which include season tickets, going up by an average of 5.8%. But these are just average rises – some fares are going up by far more than this, with the cost of an anytime direct return from Aberdeen to Cardiff set to rise 9.7%, from from £321 to £352. An annual season ticket between Glasgow and Edinburgh will now cost £3188, while Glasgow to Stirling is up to £1740 a year. The 5.8% average main-line rail increase in regulated fares, which include season tickets, is based on the July 2010 retail prices inflation (RPI) figure of 4.8% plus 1%. The train companies are allowed to use “flex” (flexibility) to average out the increase, so some fares can go up by more, provided others go up by less.
Anthony Smith, chief executive of rail customer watchdog Passenger Focus, said: “Some passengers will be facing rises way above inflation and, in some cases, it will be back to the bad old days of double-digit fare increases.”

Reading Notes

Post cards from New Internationalist magazine - not strictly socialist, but they do say something about the state of things under capitalism :

"When we talk about equal pay for equal work, women in the workplace are beginning to catch up. If we keep going at this current rate, we will achieve full equality in about 475 years." (Lya Sorano, US womens' rights activist).

 "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to beg in the streets, steal bread, or sleep under abridge." (Anatole France).

"The Air Force pinned a medal on me for killing a man and discharged me for making love to one." (Leonard Matlovich, USAF sargeant).

" Years ago I recognized my kinship with living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. (Eugene Debs).

Best wishes for a happy and healthy year,

For socialism, John Ayers

happy new year

"Happy New Year" we all said to one another on Hogmanay. Even though we meant it sincerely what are the chances of it becoming a reality? Is it likely 2011 will be any better than 2010, or more likely worse? The blame game is in full swing with politicians, bankers and regulators all trying to place responsibility with someone else. And, of course, the working class are accused of starting the problem by daring to imagine that they could lead the lives of the class above them, so ending up over-stretching themselves to accept all those mortgages and other loans. There will be many innocent by-standers caught in the cross-fire of this latest in the long list of economic crises of the market system. Workers shouldn't waste their time trying to sort out this mess, or to try and better regulate it.

What is the next step as we enter the new year?

The next step is to organise – to organise for change. In groups and meetings and on the internet we need to band together to fight against the reason most of us fell fearful or miserable - the market economy itself and the politicians who oversee its operation. Without this, our "Happy New Year" greeting will be the empty platitude it usually becomes every year.

Our New Year's wish is that we will not accept the lie that this capitalist system is as good as it gets, that it's "natural", that there is no alternative to "practical politics". The alternative is called socialism. Once the overwhelming majority of workers understand it and want to implement it then that alternative will be very real and will become the only practical political solution forward. As socialists, we argue that we should stop being the helpless victims in society, prey to the mercenary forces of the market, and instead get up off our knees. As socialists we want to participate in a progression of the global community to free humankind’s real human potential.

Socialists are equal but are each different. We don’t accept leaders. Begin to free yourself, be confident, be disobedient; think for yourself, ask questions and inquire about the socialist case. We have nothing to lose but our chains. We have a world to win.

11 yr wait to buy a house

First-time buyers in Scotland face an 11-year struggle to break into the property market, with many more frozen out by low wages and high house prices, according to new research.
On average, Scots trying to get on to the property ladder will have to find a £21,000 deposit for their starter home, according to the Halifax. It means at least a decade of scrimping and saving to get a foot on the ladder. Someone earning the average Scottish wage of £25,350 and saving one-tenth of their take-home pay would need more than a decade to amass the down payment, while still paying rent.Overall, the average house price paid by a first-time buyer in the UK has more than doubled over the past decade, increasing by 102% from £68,644 in 2000 to £138,682 in 2010 – equivalent to a weekly increase of £135. With such high demands made of those looking to buy, the average age of a first-time buyer in 2010 was 29. But it estimated that the average age of first-time buyers without financial assistance, such as a parental loan, had increased from 33 in 2007 to 36 now.
While the average-earning Scottish buyer will take 11 years to amass a deposit, a typical buyer elsewhere in the country would take nearer 15 years if they saved at the same rate.

VULNERABLE AT FURTHER RISK

"Vital support services used by a million vulnerable people will have their budgets cut by as much as two-thirds over the next four years as councils seek sweeping savings. A bleak assessment by the National Housing Federation, which represents 1,200 social housing providers in England, suggests that women fleeing domestic violence, pensioners who rely on support to help them live at home and people with mental health problems are among those who will lose out most as councils allocate their budgets for the next 12 months." (Observer, 26 December) RD

THE SICK HEALTH SERVICE

"Patients could die because staffing levels in the NHS are being reduced to dangerously low levels, the leader of Britain's 400,000 nurses has warned. The quality of care received by patients in hospitals is also bound to worsen as tens of thousands of posts are cut, says Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing. He voices alarm that the NHS in England needs to make £20bn of "efficiency savings", which risks the service returning to a situation last seen in the 1990s, when patients faced long waits and some even had to be treated on trolleys." (Observer, 26 December)  RD

CHILDREN INSIDE CAPITALISM

"I was a soldier now. I could sleep with one eye open; I knew there were 11 ways to attack a town; how to open, fuse and throw a grenade; how to load and fire an AK-47; how to raise a machete and hack at an enemy... There was nothing to be afraid of." As military memories go, it all seems fairly conventional - the baptism of fire, the euphoria of survival, the bond of comradeship. But there's an ugly twist. The gifted recruit, Emmanuel Jal, was fighting in Sudan in the early 1990s and he was 10 years old. His recollections are quoted in a recent book, They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children, by the human rights campaigner and former UN peacekeeper Romo Dallaire." (Independent, 16 December)  RD         

Toys Galore

A STORY FOR GIRLS AND BOYS

 

Christmas Eve was only twenty-seven days away. A thousand feet down beneath the ice and rock of northern Greenland Father Christmas was feeling pleased and rather excited. In his workshops the output of toys and sweets was going almost exactly according to plan.

     And what a plan! Five years ago he had decided that, old as he was, he must move with the times. And he and his elves had begun to modernise and expand his workshops. It was an immense task and it meant a profound change for all of them. But at last it was finished, and everything was working well. Now the production lines and stores and packing departments spread out under ground for many hundreds of metres, and it was all fully automated and computerised. The elves, who had once been craftsmen in wood and metal and leather and pottery and cloth, now sat at control panels and monitored whole banks of machines and conveyor belts. Now they watched over the manufacture and warehousing of a bewildering range of plastic toys, construction kits, bicycles and tricycles, dolls prams, computer games, model space ships, racing cars, toy kitchens and nurses' outfits, robots, chemistry sets, prehistoric monsters and a wide variety of sweets and chocolates and biscuits and cakes.

     Father Christmas himself dressed in his workaday red smock, sat at his control desk, smoothing his white beard and watching the VDU screens as the reports from every section flashed up in front of him. In his mind he was already composing his press statement. This was what excited him. It was something he had never done before, but he had never had such news to tell as this. Now that the reorganisation was complete and everything was working well, he was going to tell the world that, this year, for the first time, he could give every child in the world what they wanted on Christmas morning.

     Suddenly making up his mind, he got up and moved across to his world processor. Tentatively, he began to type out his message, going back to insert words here and there, moving paragraphs about, then wiping out fussy details, trying all the time to keep his news short and simple. He wanted everyone to understand the significance of the change that had taken place - how it would affect them all, but particularly the children.

 

     For as long as he could remember – a great many years - he and his helpers had toiled without rest to make a few hundred thousand presents every year to take to a few hundred thousand children in just a few parts of the world. There was never enough: never enough time; never enough hands to do the work; never enough materials, tools or energy to drive the machinery. And so most children had to go short, and many more had to go without. Now, all that had changed. Father Christmas had at last caught up with the modern world and could now turn out an almost limitless supply of the sort of things that today's children wanted.

     When the press release was finished it ran to just over two hundred words. He read it through again carefully. Nothing boastful or misleading. Just a simple statement of the facts. He hoped that every newspaper and broadcasting station would eventually carry the story in one way or another. He transferred the finished text to the main computer, keyed in Reuter's code number, waited for the "ready" signal and then touched the "transmit" key.

     He made his way to the post room near the surface. The trickle of letters that had started over a month ago had now become a steady stream. By mid-December it would be a flood. Childish handwriting and bad spelling all had to be deciphered and the details entered into the computer where they would form instructions for the packing department. This work could not be automated. It was a job for experts of long experience. Often they had to guess what was wanted or provide substitutes. This year, children who did not write at all were being given standard parcels of sweets and toys. What Father Christmas could not do - and he was acutely conscious of this as he looked at a few of the letters - was to relieve the gruelling poverty of so many of the families to which these children belonged. As he walked along the corridor towards the stables he reflected that perhaps his new initiative might point the way to ending the deprivation of adults too.

     The new sleigh was a massive affair. In spite of its traditional appearance, it was really a huge VTOL aircraft more like a spaceship, with vast load carrying capacity- It was their own design, and its test flights had probably given rise to some of the UFO stories that had spread around the world in the last two years. It incorporated one piece of advanced technology that far surpassed anything they had copied from the world outside a transporter which would beam down presents to children while the sleigh flew over at high speed, miles above.

     The reindeer knew that their formation ahead of the sleigh was now symbolic rather than functional but still they were getting restless, faintly sensing the seasonal change in the air above, eager to begin their annual

journey. Father Christmas walked slowly from stall to stall, murmuring softy to each one, calming and reassuring them.

     When he returned to his control room, over an hour later, his computer screen carried the notice that an incoming message had been received and required an answer. When he called it up on the screen, it read, "Reuterlond to SaCIaus Greenld. Request clarification your 1343.55 hrs 281186. Please confirm extent of enhanced Xmas delivery". It irritated him. He replied tersely that all children, everywhere would have presents delivered - where available, those they had requested. And then he settled down again to the job that he and the computer had been doing for weeks - the complicated planning of his delivery flights throughout the dark hours of Christmas Eve, right around the world.

     He was not left in peace for long. A reporter on a New York newspaper sent a message requesting an interview. He replied immediately that he did not give interviews. In the following two hours more than thirty similar requests came from different parts of the world. He sent the same reply to all of them, adding to the later ones the emphasis that he never had given interviews and never would. But he was worried. This was not the sort of reaction he had expected. There were no congratulations or expressions of pleasure at his news.

     He became more worried, even alarmed, when he began to receive offers to appear on television. Now he wished that he had told them nothing. Surely they understood that he never appeared in public did not want any publicity for himself, disliked even being seen. Replies to that effect seemed to do the trick. The screen stayed blank and he was able to get on with his work again.

     It lasted three days. Then the real trouble started. The first indication of the way things were going came from a Hong Kong toy company. It complained of what it called "unfair competition". This was followed by a long series of calls from toymakers' federations, confectionery groups, chain stores, trades councils and even transport associations, using expressions like, "We hope there is some mistake. . .", ". . . view with grave concern. . .", ". . . lack of consultation . . ." First he became agitated and then, increasingly, angry. None of them seemed to have any concern at all for the children they were supposed to be serving.

By the end of the week, even governments' boards of trade and foreign offices  were asking him to "reconsider" or accusing him of "dumping" - a term he did not understand - and demanding that he attend all sorts of meetings to discuss his plans. Through the dry bureaucratic jargon and the impassive green lettering on the computer screen he could feel a growing panic, almost hysteria, in their messages. They've gone mad! he said aloud, but he was deeply upset.

All his work to bring pleasure and happiness to the children seemed to have aroused nothing but dismay and hostility. For a few hours he clung to the hope that, even if these trade associations and government departments did not appreciate the breakthrough he had achieved, then ordinary people would. But angry communications from trade unions representing shop and distributive workers, employees in toy and sweet factories, and even Father Christmases in department stores all but squashed that hope.

    But the letters from the children did not stop. They wrote to him in ever-increasing numbers as the day drew nearer and the postal services kept delivering them, many more than in previous years, letters from parts of the world that had never heard of him before. They wanted his gifts, whatever their parents said. And he was determined to go on providing what the children wanted, as he had always tried to do. So when the Food and Drugs administration of the USA informed him that accusations had been made about the purity of his candy and the British Office of Trading Standards questioned the safety of his toys, he ignored them. He ignored the threats of sanctions from the secretariat of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and he smiled dismissively when the United Nations General Assembly informed him that "defensive measures" might be taken if he persisted. He was quite intent on going ahead in spite of all of them. He said, Christmas is for the children. They must know that.

     The reindeer behaved well on Christmas Eve. In the steady arctic twilight they streamed north ahead of the sleigh, over the Pole and down the international dateline. At the height they were flying, the sun remained low but visible even when they reached the south Pacific. They traversed Tonga and the neighbouring islands, where the dateline bulges east, in a few swift sweeps and then began to cover New Zealand and the sprinkled islands of Melanesia. The parcels of gifts whistled out of the unloading bay and were steadily replaced by a stream from the cargo hold as they passed over villages and cities and ships at sea. As they swept north over Australia, New Guinea and the Philippines, the earth below was dark but as they reached eastern Siberia the winter sun still lit the frozen land with a dull glow.

     Before touching China at all, they returned to Greenland to reload and refuel. And so they worked their way gradually westward around the world.

     They were flying south over India when they noticed the first bright flares coming up from the Maldives Islands. They looked a little like fireworks, but they came far too high and fast for fireworks and exploded behind them with shocks that they could feel faintly. "Bless my boots!" said Father Christmas. "They're shooting at us! 'Defensive measures'!"

     It did not happen again until they were over the Ural mountains in Russia but this time the missiles detonated ahead of them and frightened the reindeer. "Peace on earth, good will toward men" he muttered fiercely through his beard. "They are probably singing that just about now."

     The final deliveries were very late. The sun was already rising over the western states of America and Canada. The sleigh, now minus its reindeer, glinted in the sunlight like a star and left vapour trails high in the atmosphere. The children were already waking but the fighter planes had been grounded. There had been no more attacks since Father Christmas had returned to base and sent out his ultimatum. It was very brief. He simply threatened to tell everyone, parents and children, how they could have plenty of everything they wanted, all the year round, all round the world. And that really frightened the governments. They called off their defensive measures and Father Christmas went on with his task in silence. That is why not many people know about it yet.

 

RON COOK

 

Socialist Standard December 1986

 

 

 

Merry Marxmas

POVERTY IS WORLDWIDE

"It is by no means the first time someone has told me of their surprise at seeing so many homeless people in England. People from poor countries tend to assume that rich countries will have solved such social problems. But the reverse is true. According to a survey by York University's centre for housing policy, homelessness was found to be increasing in Sweden, Canada, the US, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic." (Guardian, 14 December) RD

WHAT FINANCIAL CRISIS?

"Leading US economist Nouriel Roubini has bought a $5.5m flat in New York. Mr Roubini, who predicted the global financial crisis, took out a $2.99m mortgage to buy the Manhattan property, according to New York City Department of Finance records. The "sun-blasted" apartment atop a former steel warehouse is a 3,700 sq ft triplex penthouse, according to listings website StreetEasy.com." (Daily Telegraph, 17 December) RD

ILL TIDINGS FOR HEALTH STAFF

"The NHS plans to make 35,000 nurses, cleaners and medical secretaries redundant unless staff accept a pay deal that will see them lose up to several thousands pounds a year, the Observer can reveal. The Department of Health says the losses will happen if NHS staff in England reject a two-year freeze on their pay increments in return for no compulsory redundancies." (Observer, 19 December) RD

UPMARKET PARTYING

"It is set to be the mother of all parties, with about 300 guests enjoying a sumptuous meal prepared by Alain Ducasse, the prestigious French chef, and a demonstration of circus arts by acclaimed entertainers flown across the Atlantic for the occasion. The festivities will cost 5 million Euros (£3.2 million) - a mere snip for Victor Pinchuik, the Ukrainian billionaire philanthropist who has invited his mega-rich friends to Courchevel, the French ski resort, for his 50th birthday today." (Times, 18 December) RD

A real drug problem

More than one in 10 adults in Scotland are taking anti-depressants every day, according to official statistics.

Ten years ago it was estimated that 6% of the Scottish population were regularly taking anti-depressants and this figure has been climbing for a decade. NHS Scotland said: “It is estimated that 10.4% of the Scottish population aged 15 and over make daily use of an anti-depressant drug.”

Billy Watson, chief executive at the Scottish Association for Mental Health, said: “The high numbers of people taking anti-depressants reflects the prevalence of mental health problems generally: one in four of us will experience a mental health problem at some point in our lives."

The Scottish Government’s goal, to stop the rise in anti-depressant prescribing by 2009-10 and prepare the ground for a 10% reduction in future years, has been abandoned. It has been replaced by a waiting time guarantee for psychological therapies of 18 weeks by 2014.

A survey carried out jointly by the Office of National Statistics and the Institute of Psychiatry found that children from poorer families are three times more likely to suffer from some kind of mental disorder.

The transport system is in chaos. The health service is crumbling. Schools have become testing factories. Pollution is rife and the environment under attack. The poor have got poorer. Begging and homelessness have spread. Crime is rising. Racism is reviving. Business culture reigns supreme, with “market forces”, “competition” and “profit” as the buzz-words. Life is becoming more and more commercialised and empty. People are becoming isolated from each other, so should we be surprised that mental illness is on the increase?

Some might say the standard of living may be going up, but the standard of life is most definitely going down.

A BLEAK FUTURE

"More than 200,000 extra children will be in poverty by 2013 because of cuts in housing benefits and tax credits, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said. Martin Narey, chief executive of Bernardo's said: "Children's life chances are being compromised by putting child poverty targets on hold - affecting the future of our society." (Times, 17 December) RD

FRESH AIR PAYMENT?

We are being told that "Our Resources" are being wasted, we must recycle newspapers glass etc.
A socialist would agree that there is much wasted in a capitalist world, saving newspapers may save the amount of trees felled, but he would no doubt be aware that the ownership of the trees are not his and any savings made would benefit the capitalist owners of trees, not him.  However, a socialist agrees recycling is something that would benefit the planet and would certainly be encouraged in a socialist society where the common ownership and control of the world's resources would be used to benefit everyone not the privileged few.

An article in the Sunday Herald( 19^th December 2010 ) demonstrates once again that the profit motivation of capitalist society throws a spanner into what would appear could never be a problem,

   "Scotland is aiming for "zero waste" by attempting to increase recycling and reduce the amount of waste created. Over the last five years the amount of waste recycled by Scottish local authorities has risen from 17% to over 37%."

Can't be much wrong with that one would think, but in a capitalist world some people own the land and they want to make a profit, so if you want to dump your waste you must get signed up in a contractual manner and pay for the privilege of dumping, dressed up to a better term called landfill.

      Council taxpayers who have successfully boosted their recycling face multi-million pound bills for failing to dump enough waste on landfill sites, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

As can be seen from this link, the success of recycling by the councils have caused problems which certainly would not arise in a socialist society.

" This means that much less waste is being disposed of as landfill, where it rots and causes noxious pollution. But some councils signed contracts with waste companies in the 1990s that oblige them to deliver minimum amounts of waste to landfill sites every year.

The City of Edinburgh Council signed a contract in 1995 under which it now has to supply 110,000 tonnes of waste a year to a landfill site near Dunbar in East Lothian run by waste company, Viridor.

A report estimated that shortfalls in meeting this could end up making the council liable for "fresh air payments" of £2.5 million a year for three years from 2017. This is because of Government plans to introduce bans on some kinds of waste being dumped as landfill.

"It is ridiculous that Edinburgh is locked into a contract which requires it to either generate rubbish, or pay for empty landfill space," said Dr Dan Barlow, head of policy with WWF Scotland.

"This must act as a warning to all local authorities to avoid locking themselves into long-term landfill or incinerator contracts which undermine progress to cut waste volumes and increase recycling."

Edinburgh council argued that it had to honour contracts it had signed in the past. "Our aim, along with the Scottish Government, is to minimise the amount of waste being sent to landfill. We are extremely proud of our successes in recycling to date," said a council spokeswoman.

"We don't yet know the impact new Scottish Government legislation will have on our contractual commitments to Viridor. However, if we are still bound to pay for any shortfall, the maximum exposure would be £2.5m per annum from 2017 to 2020."

Several other councils are thought to have long-term landfill contracts that could give them similar headaches. Dumfries & Galloway Council admitted that it was committed to a minimum tonnage of waste going to landfill."We're not currently liable for 'fresh air payments', though we could be in the future," said a council spokesman. "But we want to reduce our waste. Income from processing waste from private waste companies could offset any future fresh air payments."

Viridor, part of the £3.9 billion Pennon Group, claims to be the largest waste and recycling company in Scotland. Last week it was given the go-ahead for a £200m incinerator at its Dunbar site."

HOLLYWOOD IT ISN'T

"For national organizations trying to eradicate homelessness, Los Angeles with its 48,000 people living on the streets, including 6,000 veterans, according to one count stands as a stubborn anomaly, an outlier at a time when there has been progress, albeit modest and at times fitful, in so many cities. Its designation as the homeless capital of America, a title that people here dislike but do not contest, seems increasingly indisputable. "If we want to end homelessness in this country, we have to do something about L.A.; it is the biggest nut,"said Nan Roman, the president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. It has more homeless people than anyplace else." (New York Times, 12 December)  RD     

shooting estates rise

The multimillion-pound Scottish sporting estate market has had an extremely successful year in an otherwise relatively static property market, according to an estate agent.

The average size of estate has increased from 3700 acres to 4467 acres and the average sale price has increased from £.2.6 million to £3.5 million. Offers have risen from an average of 2% over the asking price to 6% over the asking price.

Robert McCulloch, an associate in the Edinburgh office of estate agents Strutt & Parker who specialises in the sale of farms and estates, said: “In short, despite the pessimism which inevitably accompanies the present ‘age of austerity’, the Scottish sporting estate market is in good health and appears set to remain so.”

Okay for some , eh?

THE PRICE OF CHEAPNESS

"Fire tore through a Bangladesh garment factory, killing at least 25 workers who made clothes for Western retailers including Gap and injuring more than 100. Most of the victims died after jumping from the 11-storey building, witnesses said. Workers said that some of the exits were locked." (Times, 15 December) RD

THE PRICE OF COAL

"Most of the workers at a New Zealand pit where 29 miners were killed last month have been made redundant. The move came after receivers were called in by Pike River Coal's largest shareholder. The workers are entitled to a maximum payout of £9,000. The colliery, where the dead miners remain buried, is still closed but it is hoped that it will reopen." (Times, 15 December) RD