UNIVERSAL CREDIT LIFELINE TAKEN AWAY FROM 70,000 NORFOLK PEOPLE

Posted on October 31, 2021 by Norwich Radical in Community and tagged austerity, benefits, Brexit, chloe smith, clive lewis, Community, cuts, disabled people against cuts, featured, Great Yarmouth, norfolk, Norfolk Against Universal Credit, norwich, Tory, uk, uk politics, Universal Credit, universalcredit, welfare, work.

by Sean Meleady

Thousands of people across Norfolk are facing financial struggle after the government cut the £20 a week uplift to the Universal Credit benefit in October. Although it was intended as a temporary measure to help with the economic effects of the lockdowns, it has become a lifeline for many.

It is estimated that 14,907 people in Norwich have lost £1,040 of their income with around 40% of them in employment. In June 2021 69,895 people were on Universal Credit in Norfolk alone.

SOLIDARITY NOT CHARITY: NORFOLK AGAINST HOLIDAY HUNGER

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Community and tagged benefit cuts, benefits, child poverty, community groups, coronavirus, Covid-19, featured, food poverty, free school meals, grassroots, Great Yarmouth, lockdown, marcus rashford, Mile Cross, norfolk, Norfolk Against Holiday Hunger, norwich, Norwich Food Hub, poverty, school holidays, solidarity, trade unions, Unite, Unite Community, Universal Credit, welfare, working class.

By Sean Meleady

While Marcus Rashford has been making headlines with the campaign that led to a government u-turn on free meals vouchers, community groups are working hard to make sure that free meals vouchers are provided to families that need them during every school holiday, not just while the Coronavirus pandemic is in the news.

KEEP CALM & WORK YOURSELF TO DEATH

Posted on August 23, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged benefits, benefits culture, Boris Johnson, conservatives, CSJ, cuts, deportation, dwp, featured, gender gap, george osborne, health, Iain Duncan Smith, NHS, pension, pension scheme, retirement, statistics, Tories, unions, vulnerable, welfare, welfare cuts, women, work, workers.

by Jonathan Lee

“New pension plans to work till you die are no cause for alarm” says arch-Tory overlord Ian Duncan Smith. A recent report from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), the Tory think-tank which brought us Universal Credit, has recommended the government raise the retirement age from 65 to 70 by 2028, and to 75 by 2035.

The Tories are not content to simply make workers’ lives as miserable as possible through underfunding schools, unaffordable housing, food poverty, and the greatest devaluation of wages in modern history. They now seek to steal the last golden years of life from the majority of working class people who cannot afford a private pension in order to retire early.Continue Reading

THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL IS BULLYING STUDENTS INTO PAYING RENT

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged academia, featured, libraries, poverty, profiteering, rent, student accommodation, UEA, universities, University of Liverpool, welfare, working class.

By Robyn Banks

In these days of marketisation and democratic collapse, it’s rare that a piece of news comes out from a university that is so fucked up it leaves me lost for words. But the University of Liverpool managed it, with the news that they’ve been handing down academic sanctions to students who cannot pay their rent.

WHY ISN’T EVERYONE A SOCIALIST?

Posted on June 28, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged authoritarian, benefits, capitalism, communism, control, featured, feminism, hardworking, margaret thatcher, neoliberalism, politics, poverty, practice, praxis, Reagan, socialism, state, theory, Thomas Mann, wealth, welfare.

by Jonathan Lee

It’s a dirty word for many who don’t really understand what it means. People often broadly sweep Socialism into a single ideology, which is much maligned as an unworkable and authoritarian regime, seemingly unsuitable for the modern day, and unpopular amongst the electorate.

I’ll start out being optimistic, and assume that this ignorance of what Socialism is explains why some people discount it out of hand. Because the premise of Socialism is generally one that I have to believe most people should aspire to in some way. “Every human being should be a moderate Socialist,” Thomas Mann said.

Why? Because Socialism is a general set of social, political, and economic views that places people first. And what’s the point of having a democratic society, in which we the people place power in the hands of a select few to manage our lives, if not to make things generally better for people as a whole?Continue Reading

CARING FOR THOSE WHO CARE

Posted on May 20, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Community, Inter|national and tagged Allowance, benefits, care, career, carer, carers week, Dementia tax, disability, featured, health, home, norfolk, norwich, transport, uk, welfare, work.

by James Anthony

Across the country during 11th-17th June, various individuals, charities and institutions will be celebrating Carers Week 2018 in recognition of unpaid carers and the work they do. That period will also mark just over two and a half months of my time working for a local carers charity. It’s opened my eyes to the issues that many carers face and what needs to change to improve their lives, but also to recognise the need to publicise Carers Week and recognise the contribution of carers to society as a whole.Continue Reading

HIGHER EDUCATION IN A POST-FEES WORLD – BEYOND TUITION FEES #1

Posted on April 6, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged academics, activists, Beyond Tuition Fees, Bright Green, consumerism, cost of living, democracy, diversity, education, employability, featured, Free Education, future, government, HE policy, higher education, jeremy corbyn, Labour, Lib Dems, marketisation, mental health, NUS, postgraduate tutors, progressives, representation, sexual harassment, social justice, social mobility, strike action, student activism, student debt, student experience, student life, students, students' unions, Tories, trade unions, tuition fees, UCU strike, uk, universities, university staff, utopianism, welfare.

By Bradley Allsop and Calum Watt

It is a time of extraordinary potential for change in UK Higher Education. Labour’s promise to end tuition fees has defied the critics and united many behind Corbyn’s political project. But what will the implications for universities be if this comes to pass? And what can we do to leverage this progress? In this new series, the Norwich Radical and Bright Green are bringing together perspectives from across the sector to explore these questions.

Politics is in a very different place than a few years ago. Radical change feels possible, tangible, close. The Labour Party’s pledge to scrap tuition fees is one of many signs of this – welcome, and necessary to salvage higher education from the marketised juggernaut it has become. But just abolishing fees is not enough to fix all of higher education’s problems.

NUS CONFERENCE OCCUPATION – SOLIDARITY FOR LEGAL ABORTION IN NORTHERN IRELAND AND STUDENT SEX WORKERS

Posted on March 28, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged #NUSConference, #NUSNC18, abortion, decriminalisation, democracy, direct action, featured, filibustering, Northern Ireland, NUS, NUS conference, occupation, protest, sex work, sit in, solidarity, student activism, welfare.

by Thai Braddick

I was elected as a delegate to NUS National Conference last year in October by students in UEA SU. I received the highest number of votes, and am proud to say that it was because I am a socialist who values and appreciates all intersections of my electorate. Today at the NUS National Conference, delegates were meant to be debating motions in the Welfare Zone, but the debate on motions W106 ‘Decriminalisation of Abortion in Northern Ireland’ and W107 ‘Students and Sex Work’ were both filibustered aggressively, with continued procedural motions and DPC and chair misconduct. These actions were taken to intentionally prevent conference being given the chance to support people in Northern Ireland’s right to choose to have an abortion and to support student sex workers through campaigning to decriminalise sex work.

WHY WAGES MATTER

Posted on March 27, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged benefits, cuts, decline, denmark, economy, featured, Ghent, housing, IFS, livelihood, pay gap, recession, salary, statistics, trade union, TUC, uk, unions, wages, welfare, workers.

by Edward Grierson

It goes without saying that the current wage situation in the UK is not good. Following the disastrous speculation on the banks’ behalf that led to the recession, real wages for UK workers fell by 10.4% from 2007-2015, a decline only matched by Greece. Even worse has been the combination of this wage drop with the continued pay gap between employees and the people who employ them: as of 2015, the salary of a UK CEO was nearly 130 times that of the average UK worker’s salary.

The reason why this is a concern, why we should be worried about falling wages, surely is obvious.Continue Reading

THE MEANING OF REES-MOGG

Posted on March 20, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged 1834 New Poor Law, anti welfare, Ben Bradley, Brexit, Brexiteers, conservatives, Davies, EU, featured, Fox, free trade, Johnson, Kehinde Andrews, left wing, malcom x, Mansion House, Maybot, MP, Oliver Twist, Phillip Davies, poor, productiveness of pain, rees mogg, theresa may, Tory, welfare, westminster, workhouse, Zac Goldsmith.

by Scott Mclaughlan

The latest official line on Britain’s European exit struck a more considered and conciliatory tone. Early this month at Mansion House the Maybot reassured her detractors: “there have been many different voices and views in the debate on what our new relationship with the EU should look like. I have listened carefully to them all”.

Meanwhile, behind the curtain, Eaton College’s answer to Mr. Twit lurks in the wings with rhetorical flush and imperial vision. Dr Fox preaches the utopia of “free trade” and Rees-Mogg casually offers up a well-thumbed copy of Oliver Twist for inspiration. The three Brexiteers, it appears, are in the driving seat.

A simple question remains: what exactly is it that they want, these Brexiteers?Continue Reading

welfare

UNIVERSAL CREDIT LIFELINE TAKEN AWAY FROM 70,000 NORFOLK PEOPLE

by Sean Meleady

SOLIDARITY NOT CHARITY: NORFOLK AGAINST HOLIDAY HUNGER

By Sean Meleady

KEEP CALM & WORK YOURSELF TO DEATH

THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL IS BULLYING STUDENTS INTO PAYING RENT

WHY ISN’T EVERYONE A SOCIALIST?

CARING FOR THOSE WHO CARE

NUS CONFERENCE OCCUPATION – SOLIDARITY FOR LEGAL ABORTION IN NORTHERN IRELAND AND STUDENT SEX WORKERS

WHY WAGES MATTER

THE MEANING OF REES-MOGG

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