Austerity policies a disaster for majority

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/mar/23/austerity-policies-disaster-majority

Version 0 of 1.

In what we hope was his last budget, George Osborne made a series of false claims about his economic record (Editorial, 20 March). The reality is that his priority is to raise profits for the corporations, top executive salaries and bonuses, at the expense of ordinary working people. His achievement is the slowest ever “recovery” from recession, while ordinary people suffer increasing hardship during the longest continuous fall in living standards since records began. That is the real Tory record of this parliament. All those who have seen their real wages fall understand the real effects of austerity policies, along with people forced into low-paid or zero-hours contracts, families forced into using food banks and everyone suffering rising A&E waiting lists. Austerity policies have not reduced the public-sector deficit to the level its supporters claimed. The limited fall in the deficit is a result of hugely damaging cuts to government investment as well as the windfall of falling global interest rates, which are a sign of economic weakness.

Austerity policies have failed everyone but the super-rich, bankers and landlords who have benefited from the government’s tax cuts, bonuses and measures to boost house prices, but not home building. We call for an end to austerity policies. We need to invest in a future for the majority of the population. That’s why we’ll be supporting the People’s Assembly Against Austerity national demonstration and festival against austerity on Saturday 20 June.

Len McCluskey UniteMark Serwotka PCSChristine Blower NUTMick Whelan AslefSally Hunt UCUManuel Cortez TSSABilly Hayes CWUDave Green FBUJohn Smith Musicians UnionSteve Gillan POADianne Abbott MPJohn McDonnell MPJeremy Corbyn MPKaty Clark MPDave Anderson MPMary Glindon MPPeter Hain MPGrahame Morris MPKelvin Hopkins MPNatalie Bennett Leader, Green partySam Fairbairn, Steve Turner & Romayne Phoenix The People’s AssemblyLutfur Rahman Mayor, Tower HamletsMaxine Peake ActorMark Rylance ActorRussell Brand ComedianShappi Khorsandi ComedianRufus Hound ComedianFrancesca Martinez ComedianJolyon Rubinstein The Revolution Will be TelevisedOwen Jones Journalist & authorRos Wynne-Jones Mirror journalistJohn Rees CounterfireRob Griffiths & Liz Payne Communist partyKate Hudson Left UnityProf Judith Heyer OxfordProf Malcolm Sawyer LeedsMichael Burke EconomistDr Jo Michell BristolDr Diego Sanchez-AncocheaProf Mary Mellor NorthumbriaProf Hugo Radice LeedsPat Devine Hon fellow, ManchesterProf George Irvin SoasProf Grazia Ietto-Gillies South BankProf Victoria Chick UCLDr Jeff Powell GreenwichPaul Hudson EconomistDr Daniele Tori GreenwichDr Mary-Ann Stephenson WarwickOzlem Onaran Professor GreenwichFrances Stewart, professor Oxford