Them & Us

'Them and us' fishes, image by Suzanne Beishon (Click to enlarge)

Ł500k house party...

New Year's Eve for the exclusive 'Chipping Norton set' cost half a million quid.

Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of news emperor Rupert, hosted this year's blowout. Her elite Cotswolds community includes axed axeman David Cameron, gutter-press queen Rebekah Brooks and playground bully Jeremy Clarkson.

Murdoch's "theatrical set" house party "with revolving floors" apparently set her back Ł500,000, according to an Evening Standard diary piece. There were "cocktails on tap and roving graffiti artists spray-painting the toilets mid-party with guests' names."

... 50p for rent

Meanwhile, in Grimsby, 42 struggling families now have no more than 50p a week for rent.

The Tories' new benefit cap came into force on 7 November, causing the dramatic fall in some claimants' housing benefit. Never mind cocktails on tap - you can't even get a space in a homeless hostel for 50p a week.

116,000 households with between one and four kids could suffer from the cap, according to the Chartered Institute of Housing.

And in London, 170,000 people are homeless. 47% of them are working, says housing charity Shelter. Some are even reduced to sleeping in a warehouse, dozens sharing a single toilet.

The Socialist has long campaigned for a national programme of council house building. Cap rents, not benefits.

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Finance appeal

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.

Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.

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