Early last week, word began filtering out that agencies which are employed to fill vacancies across the public sector – namely Grafton and Premiere – had sent emails to their workers telling them, “In the event of your workplace closing, your placement is finished”. Furthermore, agency workers were told that, in the event of them falling ill or choosing to self-isolate to protect themselves or loved ones, they would receive only the meagre statutory sick pay (SSP) of £94/week, as opposed to the full pay that had been guaranteed to permanent public sector workers.

There is an alternative to the profit system By Daniel Waldron “Now is not the time for ideology” – this has been the refrain from the Tory government, echoed by Arlene Foster, as the state has been forced to intervene into the economy in a way not seen since the […]

Despite massive advances in medicine, immunology, virology and technology, the new strain of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2, causing the COVID-19 illness) is causing human devastation around the globe. This novel influenza virus originated in bats, but how did a bat-borne virus from rural China cause a deadly pandemic, and what has capitalism got to do with it?