“Do not resuscitate” orders causes outrage

After extensive criticism was piled on the government last year, leading to an urgent investigation by the care watchdog, people with learning disabilities are still being given inappropriate Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) notices if they are ill with Covid-19. This has caused thousands of avoidable deaths.

Class struggle is back, but will class politics follow?

Nick Wright argues that despite the disappointing end to the Corbyn era in 2019, the labour movement is not in a weaker place in terms of militancy, membership and motivation — and this can be translated into electoral success once again.

Communist Party calls for “unity against monopoly power”

“State support for the capitalist monopolies and their profits is at the root of society’s major problems, including the Tory government’s disastrous handling of the Covid-19 crisis”, Bill Greenshields told a meeting of the Communist Party’s Executive Committee over the weekend. “This approach characterises the whole range of government policies from austerity and privatisation to state subsidies and the woefully inadequate test-and-trace system”, he charged. Mr Greenshields said that Britain’s successful vaccination programme owed most to the role played by public sector investment, the NHS and other public health and education institutions.

Slow vaccine roll out intensifies Tory COVID-19 incompetence

The UK has now administered the first COVID-19 vaccinations to over 5.4 million members of the population according to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s latest update on Friday 22 January. The rollout of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and, more recently, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has been lauded by Conservative MPs as large success of an otherwise shambolic and devastating response to the coronavirus crisis.

Communists: “underinvestment and privatisation to blame for COVID-19 death rate”

“Decades of underinvestment and privatisation in our health, elderly care and emergency services have produced Britain’s disastrous COVID-19 death rate – the sixth worst in the world”, according to the Communist Party. Speaking to the party’s Political Committee on Wednesday evening (20 January 2021), general secretary Robert Griffiths said the Tory government’s late and inadequate response to the coronavirus had added a “deadly twist” to the figures.

Young people are disillusioned with capitalism – not democracy

A prominent study published towards the end of 2020 through Cambridge University made the stark finding that “This is the first generation in living memory to have a global majority who are dissatisfied with the way democracy works while in their twenties and thirties”, receiving significant coverage in parts of Britain’s media.

‘Clap for Heroes’ represents the failure of the Tory government

Last night, after nearly six months off, the so-called ‘Clap for Carers’ returned. A mainstay of the Thursday nights during the original lockdown back in Spring 2020, its return is as tragic as it is insulting. The original ‘Clap for Carers’ lasted 10 weeks and millions of people took part across the country.