SURREY AGITATOR

Issue One. Summer 2003


Schools to close?

We are getting closer and closer to seeing the closure of schools. The government has changed the way that schools are funded, which has led to schools receiving less money. The government passes money set aside for funding education to the Local Education Authorities (LEAs) which then retain some of the money and pass a certain amount on to schools, the problem being that the government have underestimated how much it is costing schools to pay for the extra 1% that employers must pay on National Insurance and the 5% increase in teachers pensions. This is something the government has publicly admitted. But recently the government has accused the LEAs of retaining more money than they should’ve done. It’s difficult to tell who’s telling the truth here but it looks as if the government are trying to use the LEA as a scapegoat. The government has also withdrawn most of the Standards Funds, which is money given to schools to raise standards.

All this has left schools in a very tricky situation, local schools are now being forced to make cuts so they can afford to pay staff salaries (which compose between 80-85% of any school budget). One area in which cuts are being made is supply teachers who cost schools approximately £150 per day. The need for supply teachers is inevitably unpredictable. Many local schools will no longer be able to pay for these teachers who are used whenever a teacher is sick or on a course. A lot of schools have been forced to stop employing classroom assistants. But the government is introducing ‘Working Time Directives’ in September 2003, which will take teachers out of the classroom for half a day a week. This has been bitterly opposed by the NUT (the teachers union) as it means untrained assistants will be put in charge of classes of children, but with the cuts being made it looks as if these people won’t even be there to cover!

To try and settle school budgets the LEAs are letting schools access money set aside for repairing buildings, but this means that when the schools are damaged there won’t be any money left to repair them! Ultimately we are likely to see staff cuts in the schools if things continue the way they are. This is just another example of a government promising to make reforms to benefit the people and then getting into power and breaking all it’s promises. We’ve got to give up trusting things as important as our children’s education to politicians and take matters into our own hands.

Schools should be run by the teachers, parents, and pupils, not by faceless bureaucrats in the councils and government. These people don’t know the problems there are in running schools but yet claim to have answers to all of them.



Refugees and media myths

We’re always being told that this country is being swamped with foreigners who are just here to scab off the welfare state and plan terrorist attacks for Al-Qaeda.

But this is just another myth, obviously we do accept asylum seekers but the number is less than 30,000 a year, and with a population of around 60 million this doesn’t make much difference. The main sources of asylum seekers are Palestine, Somalia, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and Eastern Europe. All places where conflicts are going on and people are being persecuted. To escape this asylum seekers have to take huge risks, many asylum seekers die on route - from suffocation in trucks; from stowing away in undercarriages; from travelling huge distances on foot. This isn’t the kind of thing you’d risk to get a quick buck; these people are really fleeing from massive hardship. We must remember that these people are leaving their families and familiar surroundings to travel to strange countries, and when they arrive in countries like ours they have to pay off the traffickers who’ve bought them here. This means that they risk being forced into prostitution, organ donations, working in sweatshops, and forced marriages. Would you go through all of this to get to try and get an easy life off the British taxpayer?

Western countries like Britain desperately need immigrants; we’ve had to bring in nurses from the Philippines to help keep the struggling health service going. The ‘west’ needs at least 300 million immigrants over the next 25 years to stop our economies collapsing because of the number of old people, so we should welcome asylum seekers. At the moment asylum seekers can’t get any welfare and receive only 70% of income support levels, which forces them to live below the poverty line.

According to Tony Blair asylum seekers cost the taxpayer 10p a week, but what takes up so much money is the way the system takes so long to process applications; some families have been kept waiting 27 months for a decision. We need to give asylum seekers the right to work, which will give them the opportunity to contribute to society, and we need to stop giving things to asylum seekers when working class people resident in this country are denied them.

We need more affordable housing available to everyone regardless of race, we need to improve the benefit system and scrap means testing so that it’s available to all working class people. Ultimately, the solution to problems like this, where the powers that be are playing white working class people off against asylum seekers and other immigrants, is to show some class unity and tell the bosses, cops, and politicians where to go. Everyone should have a decent life and the opportunities we all deserve regardless of race.



Health care disappearing in Surrey

You pay your taxes from your hard earned wages, so you expect the state to put your money into the services, which will help you.

The most basic of these requirements is the right to receive health care. But for some time now the National Health Service has been performing badly, and who suffers? That’s right, us, the working classes. Whilst you have to sit in a waiting room for hours only to be told there are no beds available and in some cases not enough staff to assist you, the rich go private and receive all the care they need. People are even beginning to go abroad to receive care, and apparently Britain is one of the wealthiest countries on earth? (4th strongest economy)

So how has this problem come about? There are thousands of students in medical school, so there is no shortage of potential staff, yet we always hear of the lack of doctors, nurses and health care in general. The truth of it all, lack of funding. The government simply isn’t putting enough time and money into the NHS to make it work. Yet we are paying the taxes! The money is being put into fat pay cheques for politicians (MP’s pay is at a record high), spent on Defence and various other unnecessary expenditures. (Prison style asylum ‘processing’ system, war in Iraq).

But surely, not in Surrey? Yes, now the NHS crisis is hitting Surrey. The King Edward VII Hospital in Midhurst is to sack 30 vital members of staff or face losing the hospital entirely. The Cranleigh village hospital is also facing closure; locals have been forced to run a campaign to raise money to effectively pay for a hospital themselves! Both these problems could mean increased pressure on the already over-worked Royal Surrey and Frimley Park Hospitals, both also suffering from lack of funding and resources, especially Frimley Park which is on the verge of not functioning. St Peters Hospital in Chertsey got ‘nul points’ in the hospital ratings.

You pay your taxes, so why can’t you get adequate health care? So while labour are spending your money on their Oil wars and themselves where are you going to turn for your health care? Time to start asking questions about your money.



James Walker to quit Woking

James Walker and Co Ltd has told its workers that after 75 years in Woking it is considering relocating.

It is planning to quit its Hoe Bridge Old Woking site by the middle of next year and combine operations at its plant in Cumbria. Cecil Hull, human resources director, said: "We have made this early announcement to enable full consultation with our staff and trade unions to commence."

When companies are having economic problems you can be sure it’s the workers that will suffer most. James Walker is quite happy to sling 200 people onto the dole to defend its profit margins. After making an announcement like that talk of "consultation" sounds pretty hollow. Not that it will stop the unions trying to cut a deal with the management. If between them the bosses and unions come up with some deal to "save jobs" that no doubt includes redundances, more work and less money we think the workers at James Walkers should tell them to stick it where the sun don’t shine.




Euro or Pound?

Will it really make any difference to our lives if we join the Euro or not? Either way it’s still going to be rich bankers controlling the economy, it doesn’t effect us if they’re in London or Frankfurt. What matters at the end of the day is how much money you have in your back pocket, not the name of the note in your wallet. We don’t have enough money as it is!

Were Britain to join the Euro, apparently we’d be dominated by German bankers and would lose control over our own interest rates. But has anyone ever asked you what the interest rates should be? No, its all done by rich businessmen from the Bank of England, and if we joined the Euro our interest rates would be set by rich businessmen from the European Central Bank. We don’t want anyone taking these decisions for us, and we don’t think the pro and anti-Euro arguments have got anything to offer us.



Anarchism, the reality

Anarchism, doesn’t that mean chaos and violent thugs? No! These ideas are wrong and totally misrepresent anarchism. Anarchism could be called libertarian socialism, though, unlike most socialists, we don’t want an all powerful state ruling over us.

We want to destroy the capitalist world we currently live in, and which keeps the working classes as servants to the ruling classes. Ever wondered why your boss does less work than you and gets more money, why big business does so well out of the state, poor countries are kept poor, why is there so much environmental damage being done to earth, why we go to war, why your house is so small, why there is so much sexism, racism and homophobia, why you don’t have more free time to enjoy yourself? The answer is simple, Capitalism.

For capitalism to survive the working class have to be exploited, wars have to be fought and the rich will stay rich because of this. So think what is this ‘great’ system doing for you, and realise that the answer is nothing but exploiting you.

So now you know the truth what to do? Well we aim to build a fairer, freer and libertarian based society by destroying the current one and re-building it. So if you want a better life maybe you should consider anarchism.

We aren’t the violent thugs the corporate media portray us as. The most violent groups on earth are those who bomb innocent civilians with tonnes of arms, enslave people through free-trade deals and industrial oppression. The state and the rich are the real violent thugs.



The Surrey Agitator is produced by the Surrey Anarchist Group, a group of local people fighting for a free and equal society, contact us at PO Box 375, Knaphill, Woking, Surrey GU21 2XL or visit our website at www.surreyanarchy.org.uk