After the great financial collapse of 2008, we find ourselves in a turbulent period. Mass unemployment and savage attacks on living standards are the order of the day; revolutionary upheavals across the Middle East, Europe and America are the response. Many people have begun to ask fundamental questions about the way society is organised; in particular, the role of banks and financial institutions - ‘finance capital’ - has been put under the microscope.

The credit agency Moody’s has stripped Britain of its triple A credit rating, humiliating the coalition government. It comes on top of news that the UK’s economy shrank in the last quarter of 2012, whilst the other two main credit agencies have the UK on “negative watch”. All this increases fears of the British economy heading for a triple-dip recession.

The Justice and Security Bill, published for debate in May 2012, deals with matters relating to the secret services. Most controversially, it includes proposals to introduce ‘Closed Material Procedures’ (CMPs), also known as ‘secret trials’, to civil damages proceedings in the UK. Such procedures are already used in criminal trials, and some immigration and employment cases. This would prevent one party to proceedings from seeing or challenging evidence when it is deemed necessary to protect ‘national security’.

The huge response from ordinary people to the death of Hugo Chavez has highlighted the massive impact that the Venezuelan Revolution has had on millions of people worldwide. Never has the Venezuelan Revolution been more relevant than today. This explains why over 70 people came to see Alan Woods - editor of www.marxist.com and founder of the Hands Off Venezuela campaign - speak at the UCLU Marxist (University College London) society on the legacy of Chavez and the tasks of the Venezuelan Revolution now that its leader has passed away.

Within the next few months local councils will be voting through budgets for the coming financial year and are under extreme pressure from the government to make yet more serious cuts in jobs and services. Labour councils in particular are being asked to act as agents for the Tory-led Coalition at Westminster in the interests of big business.

The recent news that the UK economy shrank by 0.3% in the last quarter of 2012 will come as no surprise to working people. Four of the last five quarters have seen the UK economy contracting in what has been described as a "flat 2012." The reality is that a triple-dip recession is now very much on the cards. Manufacturing has again been badly hit with a 0.9% decline in the last quarter, but the most visible sign of the continuing economic decline in the UK has come in the British retail market. A number of well known High Street retailers - Jessops, HMV and Blockbuster - have all gone into administration, potentially leading to thousands of redundancies. This follows on the heels of

Last September 2012 the British Trade Union Congress (TUC), at it’s annual meeting of delegates from the whole trade union movement p assed Resolution 27. For the first time in its history the TUC voted a resolution which called for the full public ownership of the banks and financial institutions. This resolution built on similar ones that had been passed at trade union conferences in 2012, in particular those of Unite the Union and the UCU.

On January 25^th, as world leaders were meeting to discuss the global economic “recovery” at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, official figures were released showing that the UK economy – far from being on the road to recovery – had shrunk by 0.3% in the last quarter of 2012.

On Wednesday 23rd January 2013, David Cameron finally ended his long period of dithering and capitulated to political pressure in his own party from the right-wing Tory ‘Euro-sceptics’. Why has Cameron made a move that seems almost designed to undermine the influence of British capitalism globally and in Europe, and what attitude should socialists have to the question of an EU referendum?

On Saturday 26th January, up to 25,000 workers, Labour party members, trade unionists, students and members of the local community marched against the proposed closure of Lewisham Hospital’s A&E department located in the South London borough of Lewisham. Such a large turnout for a local protest is unprecedented in recent times and demonstrates the real depth of resistance to the cuts and anger at the government in the community. The march was considered so important that Millwall, the local football team, moved their Saturday match to ensure that it did not clash.

This capitalist crisis has posed things in a point blank fashion. Austerity cuts have hammered local government and public services across the board. Cuts were announced by the Coalition in 2010 of nearly 30% from local authority budgets, which have to cover most of the basic needs of local communities, from rubbish collection to emergency payments for the most needy in society. However, the Local Government Association says it has identified almost £1bn of additional cuts or delays to grants, adding in some authorities to a further cut of 10% of its core funding.

In his December Autumn Statement the Chancellor, George Osborne, continued the government’s war on Britain’s poorest families by announcing that benefits will be up rated at just 1% a year until 2015. The TUC has calculated that when adjusted for inflation this proposal will mean a 5% cut in benefit levels.

Since his election to the position of general secretary of Unite – Britain’s largest union, with 1.5 million members – two years ago, Len McCluskey has moved to the left in response to the pressures from below. This was shown at a meeting on Tuesday 15^th January at the London School of Economics, where McCluskey delivered a militant speech on the crisis and the need for a response from the labour movement.

The campaign group 38 Degrees has compiled a list of well known companies operating within the UK that are currently not paying their “fair share”. Companies such as Amazon, eBay, Boots, Cadbury, Ikea, Vodafone and Starbucks are all guilty of abusing the UK tax system.

The New Year will be ringing in not joy but woe for working class people. It is the year that the cuts really begin to bite. It is the year that many people lose their jobs. It is the year that, in the words of Nick Clegg, “painful” Universal Benefits are introduced. It is the year that many lose their housing benefit and become homeless. It is the year the capitalist crisis deepens in Europe, with Spain, Italy and France following in the footsteps of  Greece. Britain, however, is not far behind.