A personal message from Ben Stevenson
This is a capitalist crisis!
Tax the rich
Tax the rich
The people of Croydon North deserve a genuine alternative to the relentless austerity, public service cuts and total lack of accountability offered by the Tories. They also deserve better than the vague platitudes presented by Steve Reed and the Labour leadership. Working class people in Croydon and the rest of Britain have been forced to shoulder the burden of the economic crisis whilst the super-rich and big businesses have been making a killing. If we want the situation to change we all need to start fighting for policies that will benefit the diverse range of people, families and communities in Croydon.
Vote Communist Take the power with public ownership
The Communist Party has deep roots in Croydon and is active in many local campaigns including tackling the housing crisis (see our pamphlet Decent Homes for All), stopping plans for an unnecessary incinerator which will damage our health and fighting to return schools to local control.
Election Communication Croydon North Thursday 7 May 2015
Our party offices are based in Ruskin House, the centre for Croydon’s working class and trade union movement. Read our blog at croydoncommunists.org.uk email us at croydon@communist-party.org.uk follow us on twitter @CROCommunists or call on 0208 686 1659.
Ben Stevenson
Vote Communist
Ben Stevenson Communist Party candidate
policies for the millions not the millionaires find out more at votecommunist.uk
Promoted on behalf of Ben Stevenson by Martin Graham, Ruskin House, 23 Coombe Road, Croydon CR0 1BD. Printed by Bourne Print & Design (TU Printers) C3 Connaught Business Centre, 49 Imperial Way, Croydon CR0 4RR.
Austerity is working ... for bankers and bosses
Take the power! with public ownership
H Working people and their families didn’t create this economic crisis. Nor should we pay for it!
H We need to vote out the Tories and LibDems on May 7. But a Labour government should reverse the cuts, not continue them. We need public ownership of vital services, not privatisation.
It’s a crisis of the capitalist system caused by reckless speculation and big business profiteering. The bank bailout cost £1.3 trillion of our money – almost 20 times the annual government deficit. We’re paying for the bail-out with tax and VAT rises. And with cuts in public services, benefits and wages. But corporate profits and fat cat incomes have shot up since 2008, while wages have been frozen. In 1998, top bosses received 45 times the average pay – now they pay themselves 185 times the average. They make more in three months than most people earn in a lifetime! Today, one in five workers earn less than the living wage. Millions of people face benefit cuts, the Bedroom Tax and unfair ‘capability’ assessments for non-existent jobs. The Tory-LibDem regime wants more ‘austerity’ – which means privatisation of our NHS and schools and more anti-trade union laws to enforce low wages and zero hours contracts. Communists say we need a left-wing government – one that puts people before profit, peace before war and democracy before the EU and NATO.
Communists say a new government must: H Tax the rich, big business and City speculators. H Plug tax avoidance loopholes and close down British-run tax havens around the world. H Cut energy prices and take gas, electricity, water, buses and rail back into public ownership. H Use nationalised banks to lend to home-buyers, small businesses and productive industry. H Invest in jobs, ‘green’ technology and public services. H Return all privatised health services to the NHS. H Enforce equal pay for women and young workers. H Raise pensions and reinstate benefits and student grants. H End privilege in education and abolish fees. H Repeal the Bedroom Tax and build a million new public sector homes. H Scrap the Health & Social Care Act and return all privatised health services to public ownership. H Extend democratic rights in a progressive and federal Britain. H Scrap Trident and plans for more nuclear weapons. H Challenge NATO expansion and EU big business policies – stand up for popular sovereignty. A big vote for Ben Stevenson, the Communist Party candidate in Croydon North, will send a strong signal that workers and their families demand a new policy
votecommunist.uk
Ben Stevenson for Croydon North
H
Ben Stevenson is national organiser of the Communist Party, a working class fighter locally in Croydon for nearly a decade.
Active in his union Unite and deeply involved in local campaigning through the Croydon Trades Union Council he has experience working in the peace movement locally and nationally serving on the General Council of the Woodcraft Folk and as the Chair of Students Against War. Several times a candidate for Croydon Council and parliament Ben Stevenson wants a Labour government that will tackle the main problems faced by working people. Top of his list is affordable housing, measures to tackle unemployment and poverty wages, scrapping Trident nuclear missiles and an end to imperialist wars.
Tax the rich Vote Communist Take the power with public ownership