01.12.2011

Alternative

Roobie Rix reports on a good month for the fighting fund

George Osborne’s autumn statement on November 29 merely confirmed what everyone knew - Britain’s economy is stagnating, its debt is increasing and most people are getting worse off. According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, by 2016 the average family will have less disposable income than 10 years earlier. It’s a marvellous system, capitalism, isn’t it?

And, of course, the answer is … more of the same. A one percent cap on public sector salaries, for instance, following a two-year pay freeze. And the removal of £2 a week in child tax credit. But, as the November 30 strike proved, increasingly workers are no longer willing to put up with the austerity assault. What they need now is, yes, encouragement, but most of all a political alternative.

Almost uniquely on the left the Weekly Worker not only tells the truth about what that alternative must be. We also demand that the left looks at itself honestly, admits to its impotence and takes steps to overcome the debilitating sectarianism that has kept us in separate grouplets, leaving our class without a vehicle to advance its own independent interests.

To keep putting out that message this paper needs to overcome its own financial concerns. That is why we call on our readers and supporters to donate £1,250 every month to our fighting fund. I am pleased to say that in November we beat that target by over £200 - we raised £1,467. We have more than made up for October’s shortfall. Thanks mainly to our standing order donors, but also a nice £50 cheque from CG, an extra £203 came in over the last seven days.

We want to continue expanding our readership (last week we had 17,457 online readers), so as to be able to win the argument on the left for the type of organisational steps we all need to take - unity within a single, democratic-centralist Marxist Party. Then we would be serious about an alternative.