Them & Us

Gamblers' remorse...

"Crack cocaine" betting machines are making bookies Ł34 million every week.

'Fixed-odds betting terminals' seem designed to foster gambling dependency, and accept stakes of up to Ł100. Addicts can lose thousands in a few short hours.

The high-street menace even apparently contributed to the recent death of a 27-year-old carpenter by suicide.

While bookies make nearly a grand a day on each machine, vulnerable people face ruin. Bookies and payday loan sharks disfigure working class communities like mange.

Both Tory and Labour MPs have accepted gifts and hospitality from gambling lobbyists. Deregulation was the result. London's Tory mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith and arch-Blairite Chuka Umunna have both taken bookies' donations.

...remorseless gamblers

But it's not just the bookkeepers who are minting it from gambling misery. Britain's bankers continue to go unpunished for wrecking the economy.

The 2007 credit crunch which sparked the Great Recession came from decades of 'speculation' - legalised economic gambling. It wiped Ł666 billion off Britain's economy in just two years. We still have not recovered to pre-crisis levels.

Workers gamble their wages and face penury for them and their families. Senior bankers gamble the world economy and face - bonuses!

Nationalise the banks and big business under the democratic control and management of workers and customers. Jobs and services - not bankers' bonuses.

Ł34,000,000

Amount bookies pry from gamblers at "crack cocaine" fixed-odds betting terminals every week - nearly a grand a week per machine

Ł666 billion

Amount casino banksters wiped off Britain's GDP in just two years when they caused the 2007-08 global financial crisis

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The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.

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