Our economic system is broken – and unless we break with the government’s obsession with short-termist private profit, things are destined to get worse, warns Mercedes Villalba

AS ANYONE who has worked on the front line of the NHS and ambulance trusts knows, comprehensive healthcare in this country is being eroded by aggressive cutbacks, restructures and privatisation.
Recent national strike action shone a light on the unprecedented scale of the struggle to deliver care safely. After decades of cutbacks there are not enough staff or beds to cope with demand in the NHS. And the policies of successive governments are to blame.
It is simply staggering, and reflective of decades of lull in trade union activity, that field medicine conditions are becoming normalised in one of the richest countries in the world.

As more people on the left are now questioning the sex industry, HELEN O’CONNOR reports from a timely fringe at TUC Congress where women on the front line gave their perspective on why prostitution should never be considered ‘work’


