Steps towards a brighter future

DEAR Editor, The Joseph Rowntree Foundation produced a report on August 1 arguing that £78 billion is wasted each year in Britain because of poverty, ill health and inequality.

This report was sponsored by Heriot Watt and Loughborough Universities.

All those shattered and meaningless lives. Widespread adult and child poverty is just not acceptable in a supposedly rich country like Britain.

As a socialist and UNITE the Union member, I believe that we need a democratic socialist economy, controlled by the workers and their allies, to ensure prosperity for all.

Currently state monopoly capitalism and the Crown dictatorship functions to featherbed the rich, propertied people and finance and global capitalism.

Britain needs public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, with the flourishing of small businesses.

Manchester, like many towns, is presently falling apart at the seams. Beggars and homeless people stalk the streets and get little assistance from the council.

Many retail outlets and shops are vacant. Poverty is everywhere, it is working people who are particularly badly hit by austerity and the capitalist crisis.

Two measures which should be implemented immediately by the Government and relevant bodies to alleviate poverty: