This April the Department for Work and Pensions will be implementing the controversial ‘bedroom tax’, as part of the government’s welfare reforms. The ‘tax’ will affect 12,300 social housing tenants in Manchester alone, who will be hit by 14 per cent to 25 per cent a week penalties for having spare rooms. On Saturday 16 March, those against the new legislation plan to march in protest.

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The first Marie Stopes abortion clinic in Northern Ireland will open this week in the face of draconian legal restrictions and threats by anti-choice groups to see it shut down. South of the border, around 4,500 women each year are forced to travel to England to access an abortion. An upcoming documentary, “Why Women Travel”, is to tell their story.

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The success of campaigns by London Citizens and others have raised fresh interest in the idea of a living wage. As Manchester City Council bump up the minimum wage for their lowest paid workers to £7.15, with Trafford following suit, living wage activist Barney Wakefield gives his take on its strengths and weaknesses.

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When Danny Alexander announced plans to link the public sector retirement age to the state pension age in order to increase it to 66, he repeated a common myth: “We are all living longer, that means more years spent in work as well as in retirement.” The same myth was used to justify Tory proposals […]

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As the massive turnout for the March 26 demonstration in London proved, the cuts are proving to be extremely unpopular, even before they’ve really begun to bite. The coalition anticipated this, and have been expending a great deal of energy since they entered office in creating scapegoats. After all, people might otherwise begin to ask […]

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Jesus Christ may have been able to feed five thousand hungry punters with a few bits of bread and fish, but do Manchester City Council have the divine powers necessary to spread a handful of new houses around the thousands of people in the city in need of a place to live?

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