Hold the Government to Account for the
Devastation Caused by the Floods

Last year, extreme weather and high tides started destroying homes on the East Coast. In the following months, there has been extensive and persistent flooding of hundreds of square miles of Britain mainly in Central, South and West England, and in Wales. This extreme weather has left thousands of people and even whole villages and towns almost permanently flooded with some villages cut off and abandoned. Following this there have been days of high hurricane strength winds combined with high tides on the West Coast as far up as Scotland. Several people have died as a result and the misery that this has caused to the well-being of thousands of people and the damage to their homes and to infrastructure and businesses of their towns has been relayed by the media on a daily basis.

The great anger that so many people have being expressing, where people have been left to fend for themselves, either without any help, or with help from over-stretched fire and other emergency services, has led to government ministers and the Prime Minister David Cameron touring the areas affected making desperate promises of help. At the same time, often in the midst of all this, these government ministers have been squabbling among themselves about who is to blame for the lack of support to the people affected. However, they are conveniently overlooking the whole direction that government has taken on this. The massive cuts to public investment over recent years in infrastructure, environmental services, public services, and its fraudulent programme of “small government” and “big society” has all contributed to a direction which is unable to plan for the present, or the future of the environmental infrastructure of Britain. It is unable to protect the well-being of people’s homes and small businesses.

In addition, actions that the government has taken have added to the devastation that the extreme weather has caused. Deforestation and wrecking of the landscape, including marsh lands, has contributed to soil erosion. The Coalition government also removed restrictions on the planting of maize, giving a specific exemption for maize cultivation from all soil conservation measures. The issues has been one of not cultivating the land for need, but for maximum profit with no regard for Mother Earth or the people dependent on her.

In fact, the whole direction that government has taken society and the economy is one of just serving the interests of the monopolies for maximum profit using the Treasury to fund the infrastructure that serves their interests. In this respect, the government's latest National Infrastructure Plan 20131 published in December claims it is addressing the issue of historic under-investment by saying it “is taking action to ensure that the UK has the infrastructure it will need to be successful in the global race”. In this plan, they admit that “flooding will continue to be a significant risk for some UK households as sea levels continue to rise. Approximately 5 million properties are exposed to at least some level of flood risk. Severe flooding can cause immense amounts of damage to both the economy and people’s lives – the floods of 2007 are estimated to have cost around £3 billion.” They also noted “an independent assessment that the number of properties facing significant risk of flooding could rise from 560,000 to between 770,000 and 1.3 million by 2050”. Yet in the face of this evidence the government does not see this as a priority in the “global race” to serve the monopolies : their spending in the 2013 plan is approximately £1.5 billion - half of the cost of the £3 billion clear-up in 2007. Yet, in 2013, the overall infrastructure investment “value of the pipeline has increased from over £309 billion to over £375 billion of investment. Most of the value of the pipeline is in the energy and transport sectors, worth over £340 billion of combined investment (as highlighted in the chart 2.A, which shows investment on a logarithmic scale).”

As can be seen in the bar chart 2.A the figures are deliberately presented in logarithmic scale to try and minimise the impact of the lack of investment in flooding and waste. What also can be seen is that it is the massive investment in energy and particularly transport links which is demanded by the global monopolies, paid for out of the added value created by the people, that is skewing the investment in infrastructure towards projects that satisfy the interests of the monopolies for maximum profits. This is reflected in the pictures on our screens of Britain as a country increasingly crossed by motorways raised above the flood levels whilst even the rows of new housing situated by the sides of these roads are all flooded because there is no investment in building these houses above the present flood levels. At the same time, rivers, coastal areas and ports that are no longer of interest to the profits of these monopolies are mostly left with flood defences that have not been upgraded since the Victorian era. Rivers and historic lowland farm land, such as in Somerset and Norfolk, which were dredged and managed for centuries are no longer properly managed, or dredged leaving the populations that live by them increasingly vulnerable to flooding and other disasters.

Great Yarmouth In fact, the whole government's “National infrastructure plan” started in 2010 is not “planning for the future” as it claims but a plan to produce infrastructure in favour of the monopolies and their maximum profits. It also has the aim to sell Britain's infrastructure to these global monopolies lock stock and barrel. The 2013 report boasts of the sell-off of the Post Office “with the privatisation of Royal Mail and sale of shares in Lloyds Banking Group, central government has delivered sales of over £11 billion since May 2010”. It also itemises in the “government assets sale” that the sale of “corporate and financial assets will be increased from £10 billion to £20 billion between 2014 and 2020”. This includes £12 billion for privatisation of student loans, property assets and the government’s shareholding in Eurostar, the Green bank and so on. At the same time, the report points out that since May 2010, there has been around £15 billion of inward investment in UK infrastructure (as shown in table 6.A) such as power stations, ports, airports, water reservoirs, to foreign monopolies. They congratulate themselves on attracting foreign monopolies because of a “stable risk and return profile, clear property rights for investors, world-class regulation, transparent policy development, strong financial markets”.

In other words, the government is speeding ahead with its plan to place the infrastructure of the country directly in the hands of the monopolies and financial oligarchy and ensuring that it more and more directly serves their interests in spite of the pending disasters to the country caused by this direction. These latest extreme weather events have further exposed in a most tragic way this anti-human direction in the infrastructure of the country. All kinds of excuses are being made by the government and an obedient media to claim that flood defences can no longer be afforded, that climate change means that whole areas of the country and the people who live there should abandoned to climate change and rising seas. This is the criminal logic of the ruling circles who in their drive for maximum profit cannot determine the outcome of their own disastrous actions for society as a whole. David Cameron can only respond by raving against the forces of nature, like King Canute who tried to hold back the waves before him. Yet David Cameron has the facts and knows now what he is doing. In his panic, he tries to claim that “money is no object”, but as with vital public services there is no new investment from his government. He only has eyes to serve the interests of the monopolies. It is ironic that such a failing state as Britain can send thousands of troops to carry out invasions and occupations of other countries in the name of “making Britain great again” but has been unable to mobilise soldiers in any effective way to carry out flood relief work in Britain.

What is required is holding the government to account and prioritising a national infrastructure plan that places the well-being of the population and their environment in the first place. It is clear more and more as these events unfold that this task falls to the people themselves, to their resistance and to building their workers’ opposition. The workers’ opposition fights to transform the society and economy in the direction that puts human beings at the centre of all decisions and curbs these monopolies before they are allowed to submerge the whole of society under the flood waters of their disastrous capital-centred system.

1National Infrastructure Plan 2013 https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/263159/national_infrastructure_plan_2013.pdf

London Health Emergency, February 5, 2014

One year after the Francis Report put forward a massive 200 recommendations for action to prevent the recurrence of the catastrophic failures of care arising from cash-driven cuts in Mid Staffordshire Hospitals Foundation Trust, the danger of further failures is greater than ever.

Dozens of NHS Trusts, seeking as Mid Staffs did to make massive and rapid cuts in spending to meet the criteria for Foundation status, are struggling against the stream of flatline NHS funding and soaring pressures on services: the biggest of all, Barts Health is cutting back on skilled and experienced nursing staff – regardless of quality concerns – as it seeks £77m of “savings” this year. Many Foundation trusts, too are struggling to survive financially. They all face another six years at least of frozen funding under George Osborne’s brutal spending limits.

On staffing levels, as with every one of his claimed achievements, Hunt’s solution has simply been to dump the problem onto others. He has refused to impose a minimum nurse staffing level, resorting instead to the publication of figures without anything to compare them against.

He boasts about increases in nurse numbers in acute hospitals, but ignores the fact that there has been a corresponding cut in community health care – to which ministers are trying to divert patients – and the fact that the result is draining even more resources from mental health care, which is now being cut back each year while the government covers up by scrapping the collection of figures.

Hunt’s warm words about whistleblowers have not been coupled with any measures to protect potential whistleblowers under his own government: already Barts Trust has publicly sacked one prominent union activist, Charlotte Monro, after 26 years unblemished service, for speaking out on cuts to the local council’s health and scrutiny committee. The real message is clear: speak out and desperate managers will victimise or sack you, while ministers look on, mouthing platitudes about a “duty of candour”.

Sacking managers, pillorying “failing” trusts, and putting increasingly impossible demands on front line nursing and clinical staff to keep the system going while Osborne starves the NHS of the funding it needs is not the way to establish a sustainable, safe and reliable system.

The cash squeeze is so brutal that even McKinsey, Monitor and NHS England have not been able to address the staffing consequences of the massive continued reduction in payroll costs required bridge the yawning gap between resources and demands. Yet staffing levels are key to the quality and safety of health care.

The target for cash “savings” involves annual cuts until 2021 in the prices paid to trusts for front line services, where 70% of trust spending is on staff. This intensified onslaught on jobs, pay, skill mix, terms and conditions comes after four yours of pay cuts have slashed 16% from the value of NHS pay, leaving health workers weary, demoralised and bitter. Meanwhile David Cameron battles on in the EU to protect lavish bonuses for bankers, and rejects Labour's call for an extra 5% tax to be paid on earnings over £150,000 a year.

The funding squeeze is making the NHS unsustainable. Without a break from this and serious increases in front line resources there will be more failures and scandals – which we know will be exploited to the full by Hunt. In the past, the Tory Health Secretary has made no secret of his own ambition to discredit the NHS – and open the door for private medicine and health insurance.

The latest hypocritical nonsense on Francis should be dismissed with contempt by all who care for the NHS. The NHS needs more money, an end to the wasteful fragmentation of the Tory market reforms, and a government that supports its basic principles as a public service rather than working to break off profitable slices for the private sector.

University staff are continuing their campaign against the derisory below-inflation 1% annual rise, which Toni Pearce, president of the National Union of Students (NUS), described “measly”. The University and College Union (UCU) in particular has been carrying out a series of two-hour stoppages, so far on January 23 and 28 and February 10. Furthermore, a third day of coordinated strike action was held on February 6 by Unite, Unison, UCU and EIS.

Related to this, Manchester University has ended its use of zero-hours contracts by its private catering company, University of Manchester Catering Ltd, after a campaign by Unison.

Unison members – ancillary and support staff – at Birmingham University also began strike action on January 16 over the 1% offer, followed by working to rule the following week. Their action received the support of Ian Ward, Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council and local MPs, including: Gisela Stuart MP (Edgbaston), Richard Burden MP (Longbridge), Jack Dromey MP (Erdington) and Steve McCabe MP (Selly Oak).

Students at have also been in action at the university. A national mobilisation on January 29 including the occupation of Birmingham University’s Great Hall by 300 students to raise the demand for free education was met with police repression. Thirty students were held in a police “kettle” on the roof for more than four hours. As they were released, they were subject to searches and were apparently forced to give personal details, in potential violation of a High Court ruling against this practice. It is reported that twelve of the students were arrested, while six were suspended by the university until September with no right of appeal.

Two students were charged with “violent disorder”. An eyewitness is quoted as saying that one of the two, a third-year politics student, was neither violent nor aggressive, but was advising other students of their legal rights, such as the right to speak to a solicitor. The two were bailed on January 31, after having initially been refused bail. They must again appear in court on May 23. The remaining ten arrested students have been subjected to draconian conditions such as being barred from entering any university or publicly assembling in any group of more than ten people without the consent of the police. They must also spend each night at their home addresses.

Hattie Craig, Vice President of Birmingham Guild of Students, said various students “were dragged to the floor by private security guards by their hair, whilst shouting I’m peaceful, don’t hurt me”. There are also reports that one of the students was hospitalised after the demo, and treatment was delayed when he was held inside the kettle.

A petition calling for the students to be reinstated has at the time of writing attracted over 5,700 signatures.

The protest followed a 12-day occupation of Birmingham University’s Horton Grange conference centre, which came to an end on February 3 when the university was awarded a possession order.

Features of these and other actions have been the determination of staff to fight for their rightful claims and of students to defend the right to education, as well as the unity between students and staff despite desperate efforts to split them. Student organisations have remained in support of staff and have been expressing solidarity and providing active assistance. The response of management has increasingly been to attempt to impose terms, refuse to negotiate and break up protest through the use of force including violence, intimidation and making arrests. None of this, however, will deter students from taking control of their future: they held a national week of action from February 6-13, which is to be followed by a national day of action to coincide with the budget on March 19.

[Sources: Defend Education Birmingham, The Independent, Morning Star, UCU, Union News, UNISON]

Syrian government delegation
entering the Geneva II talksIn the past weeks, the Foreign Secretary William Hague has publicly celebrated his government’s intervention in Libya and bemoaned the fact that despite similar intent and interference it has so far been unable to effect regime in Syria.

The Foreign Secretary was brazenly self-congratulatory about the chaos and anarchy that the NATO invasion has brought to Libya, in comments that he made on the third anniversary of what he chose to call the “17 February Revolution”. He boasted of the role that the British government had played in organising regime change and toppling the government of a sovereign country, and of the government’s continuing interference in that country’s state and security institutions, not to mention its economy. His other comments, regarding supporting the Libyan people’s “ambitions” for their country, are completely at odds with reality, since it is clear that there is little order and security in the country and because Britain and the other big powers have signalled their intention to remain the arbiters of its future.

In Syria, the governments of Britain, the US and their allies have done everything possible to implement the same criminal methods employed in Libya in order to undermine and subvert the government of President al-Assad. A civil war, fuelled and fully supported by the leading powers of NATO, as well as some of Syria’s neighbours, has been raging for some three years and has led to over 100,000 deaths and almost 10 million refugees. The British government even officially recognises the so-called National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, as the “sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people”, even though the opposition to the al-Assad government is increasingly divided and contains many elements that the government of Syria refers to as “terrorists”.

The attempts at regime change in Syria, headed by the Anglo-Americans, can also be seen as an attack against Iran, Syria’s main ally in the region, and an attempt to undermine Russian influence and threaten that country’s naval presence in the Mediterranean. Regime change in Syria would strengthen the position of the NATO powers and their allies in western Asia. Most importantly, it is an attack on the sovereignty of the people of Syria and must be condemned.

The efforts of the British government and its allies have focused not only on destabilising the Syrian government from within but also threatening to use military force against it, although the governments of Britain and the US have hitherto been unable to overcome legislative opposition to their war plans. The Anglo-Americans have attempted to make full use of their position in the UN Security Council to find some way of openly intervening in Syria either in the guise of “humanitarianism” and their alleged “right to protect”, or under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, but so far have been thwarted principally by the opposition of Russia and China.

The Anglo-Americans and their allies have also pinned their hopes on exerting pressure on the government of Syria at the much-delayed conference recently held in Geneva (referred to a Geneva II), which was originally proposed by the UN Action Group on Syria in 2012. The Geneva Communiqué agreed by the UN Action Group originally specified the need for a sustained and lasting ceasefire, agreed principles for a Syrian-led and fully inclusive political transition, including national dialogue and a transitional governing body, and committed itself to the “sovereignty, independence, national unity and territorial integrity of Syria”. But no ceasefire has been established and Geneva II was also delayed because the National Coalition’s members could not decide whether to attend and many refused to do so. The nature of the conference can be judged by the fact that the invitation to the government of Iran to participate was withdrawn following US-led opposition. The government of Syria had for some time indicated its readiness to participate but was determined that all sides should first discuss the important of “counterterrorism” measures in Syria, in accordance with the Geneva Communiqué, a position opposed by the NATO-backed National Coalition which not surprisingly placed more emphasis on steps to establish a transitional government.

The fact that Geneva II did not lead to any developments favourable to the governments of Britain and the US led both to issue statements condemning the government of Syria as solely responsible for the lack of progress. However, it has already become evident that while claiming that they favour peace both governments are encouraging the so-called Free Syrian Army to open a new military front in southern Syria, which can be supplied from Jordan, as well as threatening more direct intervention under the auspices of the UN.

The continuing conflict in Syria is a great tragedy for the people of that country and is destabilising the entire region. However, the main responsibility for this tragedy lies with the governments of Britain and the other big powers, both in their collusion and contention. It is they who are continuing to fuel a conflict, which may yet result in even greater conflagration. It is the responsibility of all democratic people to demand an end to Britain’s interference in Syria and to create the conditions to usher in a government opposed to global intervention and war.