Defend RT!

The Russia Today (RT) news channel was forced off the air this week by the Johnson government in a move that follows similar measures against Russian media outlooks throughout Western Europe. Though still available online the Russian television station can now no longer be accessed on any of our TV platforms. Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries says “the Russian dictator will now find it harder to spread his disinformation and lies” but banning RT is, in reality, a sign of weakness by the bourgeoisie that have taken us to the brink of all-out war in Europe over Ukraine. Now European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has decided to ban RT across the European Union. But Europe's largest association of journalists has, quite rightly, blasted the move.The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), which represents 320,000 journalists across Europe, has called the European Commission President's decision "counterproductive" and questioned her right to make it.
    EFJ General Secretary Ricardo Gutiérrez said: "This act of censorship can have a totally counterproductive effect on the citizens who follow the banned media. It is always better to counteract the disinformation of propagandist or allegedly propagandist media by exposing their factual errors or bad journalism, by demonstrating their lack of financial or operational independence, by highlighting their loyalty to government interests and their disregard for the public interest”. He said the EU had no right to grant or withdraw broadcasting licences, which was the "exclusive competence of (individual) states."
    RT was never a major player on the British scene. Its niche UK audience was put at around 2.5 million viewers compared to the 6.4 million prime time viewers claimed by the American CNN, Fox and MSNBC stations and way behind the immense reach of the BBC and the other mainstream TV channels. But the fact that RT is seen as a threat to the war propaganda of the British government and the European Union shows what little confidence they themselves have in the credibility of the nonsense their own media is churning out at the moment.
    

Stand by the Donbas!

John McDonnell has been criticised for pulling out of a Stop The War rally after being told he would be kicked out of the Labour party if he spoke at the meeting.
    The man who was once Jeremy Corbyn’s second-in-command caved in to Starmer’s threats and left it to Corbyn to speak alongside Tariq Ali and other Stop the War Coalition leaders at the meeting in London on Wednesday.
    John McDonnell is no friend of the Russian Federation. Only last week he was marching alongside his friends in the “Ukraine Solidarity Campaign” to protest against the Russian intervention while the rest of the Stop the War leadership, including Corbyn, are all calling for an immediate cease-fire and an unconditional Russian withdrawal from Ukrainian territory. But this isn’t enough for Starmer. He wants total support for whatever comes out of the White House and, at the moment, that doesn’t include a cease-fire.

We say US/NATO hands off Russia! Stand with the communists of the Donbas and the anti-fascist resistance in Ukraine!

Getting to grips with the crisis

The news that the Health Minister has gone down with coronavirus is a sign that the virus has now reached out to the corridors of power in Westminster. By Tuesday the number of cases in the UK reached 382, a rise of 63 from the previous day, with a sixth person confirmed to have died after contracting the virus also known as COVID-19.

Whether this will inject a new sense of urgency into the Johnson government remains to be seen. Last week’s bumbling press conference in which Boris Johnson told us how to wash our hands followed by more confused ramblings on ITV’s This Morning show have not inspired confidence amongst the elderly and the infirm, who are most at risk from the COVID-19 virus.

The Government’s response to the crisis was unveiled in the Budget this week. But abolishing business rates for small firms in England, extending sick pay and increased NHS funding only goes part of the way to tackling the escalating threat of a devastating epidemic that could overwhelm the health service and seriously undermine the economy at the same time.

Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell says that 10 years of “cuts, weak growth and widespread insecure work” have left the UK in a “vulnerable position” to a shock such as the one the country now faces. Government spending is “nowhere near the scale we need” he says and after “10 years of austerity… we’ve got inequality and poverty that we’ve not seen on a scale in this country”.

Labour points out that NHS trusts ended the last financial year with a combined deficit of £827 million, excluding £256 million of exceptional technical adjustments due to the collapse of Carillion, whilst clinical commissioning groups had a debt of £150 million. Trusts are now increasingly relying on loans from the Department of Health, which they are unlikely ever to repay.

Labour has highlighted the dismal state of our hospitals today. Since 2010, 17,000 NHS beds have been cut and one in 12 health service posts in England is unfilled. Some 214,000 people, one in four patients, left waiting on trolleys for over four hours last year – the second worst performance on record  – and over 11 per cent of ambulances left waiting over 30 minutes to deliver patients to hospital. More than 5,000 hospital patients spent over 12 hours in A&E over the acute Christmas period last December; 678 urgent operations were cancelled between January and February last year, and 4.3 million people are now on waiting lists awaiting treatment.

Communists believe that the National Health Service is a cornerstone to our society, to treat all, when needed, paid through a fair taxation system, to give good after-care, to prevent the spread of disease, and encourage and promote a healthy lifestyle. A good NHS is essential for a healthy population, and essential to a socialist society and socialist economy.

Short-term measures, ‘hardship funds’ and tax breaks for small shops are not going to keep coronavirus at bay. We need to follow the Chinese example that the Italians are now following, to stop the virus in its tracks. The NHS needs massive injections of funds to fill the vacancies at all levels and recruit the health workers needed to deal with the current crisis.

John McDonnell says the coronavirus threat has “exposed the social emergency” Britain faces and said that “someone needs to get a grip”. Sadly, but not surprisingly, there’s no “someone” who fits the bill in the current government.