Responding to the Sinn Fein document, Paddy stated:
“Sinn Fein has simply outlined the same old failed strategy of tax breaks and subsidies for big business. It has not worked and it will not work now. Multinationals attracted by huge handouts from Invest NI will disappear as soon as the subsidies dry up. HCL – which received £5.5 million in public subsidies – is now threatening its workforce with the sack if they don’t accept huge attacks on their conditions.”
“Sinn Fein are hypocrites. The cuts they have signed up to will throw 40,000 people on the dole. Sinn Fein talk of ‘harmonising tax’ across Ireland- this means slashing corporation tax in the North, transferring millions directly from public services into the profits of big business.”
“The idea that the Assembly can come to an ‘agreement’ with the top banks to make them pay a ‘contribution’ to the recovery is insulting. These banks received over a £1 trillion of our money, and Sinn Fein wants them to pay a paltry £25 million a year. The Socialist Party says that the banks should be taken fully into public ownership and used to fund a program to create socially useful Jobs, such as investing in building new schools and hospitals, upgrading our water service and training new teachers and nurses.”
To their disgrace, the parties in the Assembly Executive are attempting to bully householders into accepting water charges with the threat of even further cuts to public services. It is being peddled that the cuts to public services are because householders are not paying water charges. This is a lie and the facts speak for themselves.
South African riot police fired tear gas on hundreds of security stewards protesting against wage cuts, 90 minutes after the match between Germany and Australia in Durban.
Fighting capitalism to win equality
Trade union activists expect class bias in the courts and employment tribunals. But rarely has a tribunal delivered such a blatantly biased judgment based on class interest. The employment tribunal judge declared open season for the persecution of Trotskyists, whom he considers "unworthy of protection" in a democratic society.