The Socialist Issue 182

WITH THE sensitivity of a pair of large hobnailed boots, Railtrack bosses awarded themselves and their fellow fat cat shareholders a 5% rise in dividend payouts amounting to £50 million - the fourth consecutive year's increase in dividends since privatisation.

Railtrack recently admitted liability for the Hatfield train crash which killed four people. It was their lax safety standards in failing to repair tracks which led to the disaster.

Railtrack, eager to maximise profits, replaced equipment so infrequently that the number of broken rails went up by nearly a third since privatisation. It also cut the number of track maintenance workers by 21%.

This week, Railtrack announced that it had made £175 million profits between April and September this year. That's £175 million stolen from public money that should be used for repairs and improvements to services. Only the Dome robbers have as much brass neck.

The other greedy beneficiaries of rail privatisation such as Virgin, GNER and GWR are now refusing to pay Railtrack the high sums they charge for using their track.

Privatised train operating companies want Railtrack to compensate them for severe delays caused by emergency speed curbs imposed after Hatfield. If they don't do so, these firms will continue their 'can pay but won't pay' policy against Railtrack.

Meanwhile Railtrack tried to blame the train companies for ruining track by having too heavy rolling stock.

The way to stop this fiasco is to bring the fragmented rail network back into one publicly owned and controlled company.

However, railways minister John Prescott refuses to renationalise the railways despite their abysmal safety record. He won't even insist on installing Automatic Train Protection. Instead, New Labour continues to shell out billions each year in public subsidies to the bloated fat cat rail bosses.

Support the Socialist Party's campaign for a socialist transport policy. We say:

· Bring the privatised rail bosses to justice for neglecting safety in their drive for profit.

· Renationalise rail and transport under democratic working class control and management.

· A massive programme of investment now to improve safety and service provision.

Hot air in the Hague

ONCE AGAIN the world’s great and good gathered in the Hague, Holland, to plan how to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, responsible for rapid global warming.

Higher temperatures mean there is more energy driving the earth’s climate system. Surface warming increases evaporation and the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere.

Scientists have linked global warming to many of the extreme weather events that have led to devastating floods as well as severe droughts around the world.

According to a recent report from the University of East Anglia on rapid climate change, the four most vulnerable countries are Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. Each has only $100 of its annual wealth (GDP) per person to cope with every degree of warming. The least vulnerable country, Luxembourg, has $8,800 per capita for each degree of warming.

Commenting on the report, New Scientist (11 November) says: “Almost without exception, the nations that are most threatened by global warming produce the smallest amounts of greenhouse gases.”

The developed capitalist countries wish to portray an image of energy efficient industry working to minimise pollution whereas developing countries reliant on smoke stack industries are the cause for environmental concern.

The reality is that the dominant Western capitalist countries consume more and pollute more than the ex-colonial world.

The richest fifth of the world’s population account for 86% of consumption while the bottom fifth account for only 1%. In terms of energy consumption, the respective figures are 58% for the richest fifth compared to just 4% for the poorest fifth. The USA (with just 4% of the world’s population) produces 25% of greenhouse gases.

The 1997 Kyoto world summit protocol saw the advanced capitalist countries agree to cut carbon emissions over the next 12 years to between 20% - 40% below what they would have been if present trends remained unchecked. (Scientists argue that greenhouse gases need to be cut by 60%)

Other countries, like Russia, had to maintain their emissions at 1990 levels. In the number one country for emissions, the USA, the Senate refused to ratify the protocol.

Moreover, Kyoto allowed a market for the trading of carbon emissions to be established. This allowed the US to buy up Russia’s surplus carbon allowance as Russian industry has declined in the post-Soviet economic collapse. It also means that multinational companies like Shell – which made $2.26 billion profit in the last three months - will invest in countries that haven’t signed the protocol and therefore pay less carbon taxes.

The New Labour government has tried to portray itself as environmentally friendly. Deputy prime minister John Prescott has said the recent floods are an environmental “wake-up call” (Despite allowing three million new homes in the South East by 2016 – with developers building in flood plains.) And Tony Blair made his first speech on the environment since becoming prime minister in May 1997.

In his speech to the Confederation of British Industry and Green Alliance (a pro-big business front organisation) Blair called for a partnership between government, big business and the green movement. Indeed, he argued that “we should see protecting the environment as a business opportunity”.

Blair is oblivious to the contradiction between capitalism’s drive for profits which is destroying the environment and its claim to be ‘green’.

This is unsurprising given the financial donations and sponsorship New Labour receives from capitalists. Moreover, big business is well represented at all levels of government to ensure that it is their agenda which carries the day on green issues and not working-class people and the world’s poor.

The Hague summit in the hands of the world’s capitalist leaders is likely to prove just as vague as Kyoto and the umpteen other international ‘green’ conferences.

However, a socialist environmental policy’s starting point is people’s needs not corporate profits. Socialist, public ownership of industry, with democratic working class management, linked to a massive redistribution of wealth from rich to poor and from the wealthy capitalist countries to the world’s poorest countries, would provide the resources to invest in clean, renewable energy sources to halt environmental destruction.

Labour rattled in Lewisham

SAM DIAS is causing a real stir as the Socialist Party/Socialist Alternative candidate in the Lewisham council by-election in Pepys ward on 23 November.

The local paper The Mercury, carried a very sympathetic half-page profile last week. It showed how Sam, a single parent with a disability, manages to cope with her three children while being extremely active in the community on Honor Oak estate.

Socialist Party member Ian Page won a seat in Pepys ward in June 1999. So Sam’s strong candidacy has ruffled some New Labour feathers. A message went out on the Internet to Labour’s declining party faithful recently, trying to solicit outside help in their quest to hold this seat.

It said: “Last year we lost another by-election to a defector to the Socialist Party. There will be a Socialist candidate this time too...

“It is vital that we hold this seat in order that the Socialists cannot claim control of the ward or that part of the borough. This is especially so with the general election looming.”

The contrast between Labour and Socialist Party councillors could hardly be greater. Ian Page together with Sam Dias and other tenants activists fought to win £12 million refurbishment money for the run-down Honor Oak Estate.

Lewisham council wants to privatise all its housing stock. Last year Ian Page and the Save Lewisham Housing campaign defeated a referendum which tried to sell off 7,000 council flats and houses.

The council is also selling off three elderly people’s homes and moving the old people out into the private residential sector.

Labour, the party of cuts, are having to pull out the stops for this election. Socialists should do the same and help build Sam’s campaign. Campaigning and canvassing of voters takes place every weekday evening and weekends during the day. For details contact Ian Page on 0797 007 4230.

THE REAL loser in the US presidential election will be one who gets the presidency, says LYNN WALSH. Disputes over bungled counting and allegations of vote-rigging, will envelop the new administration in a dark cloud of suspicion. Whatever the final decision, neither Bush nor Gore will enter the White House with a decisive popular mandate.

Election war in the USA

EVEN IF the outcome of presidential voting is decided soon, Congressional and judicial enquiries into balloting irregularities in a number of states may throw up dirt for years to come. Florida, where George W’s brother, Jeb Bush, is governor, is a can or worms.

Unbelievable incompetence aside, there were clearly attempts to fix the vote in favour of Bush, including racist steps by the police to exclude African-Americans from some polling stations. After this, the presidency will inevitably be tainted.

Whoever occupies the Oval Office will face a gridlocked Congress. The Senate is divided right down the middle (50 Republicans, 49 Democrats). The House of Representatives has a reduced Republican majority (221 to 212 Democrats, 2 Independents), hardly a stable, working majority for the president given the recent breakdown of party discipline.

With budgets and legislation, the White House will have little room for manoeuvre. Embittered by wrangles over the election, the Congressional atmosphere will be poisonous (outdoing the guerrilla warfare over Lewinsky and impeachment).

Foreign policy initiatives, trade negotiations and anything else requiring Congressional approval will become bogged down in unending wrangles.

Comparisons have been made with the 1960 election, when Kennedy narrowly beat Nixon, notoriously helped by vote-fixing by two Democratic party bosses, mayor Daley in Chicago and Johnson in Texas.

Yet in spite of that, it is claimed, Kennedy still became a “great president”. JFK, however, took office at the height of the post-war economic upswing, when US imperialism was at the peak of its global power.

HE WHO enters the Oval office next January will be taking over in the closing phase of the present upswing, feeble compared to the 1960s and already giving way to a new downturn. The next president will inherit what will almost certainly be the worst economic and social crisis since the end of the second world war. Burning social grievances and class issues will force themselves into the political arena currently dominated by the big-business twins, really two factions of a single right-wing party.

Seemingly engaged in mortal combat, Democrats and Republicans have no fundamental differences. They are almost equally financed by big business, together spending well over $3,000 million in this election.

There are only marginal policy differences, over the scale of tax cuts for the wealthy, privatising pensions, etc. The real fight is over the spoils of office: the power and patronage which goes with office, especially the presidency. Jobs for the boys and girls, pork-barrel hand-outs and tax-breaks for business backers, deregulation for polluters, military contracts for favourite firms, and so on, and so on.

This time the turnout was slightly higher than 1996, 51% compared with 49 %. This was partly because it was so closely fought, but also because of Nader’s campaign. Still, nearly half the eligible electorate saw no point in voting.

In some areas minorities, women, and union members turned out in higher numbers, overwhelmingly for the Democrats to oppose worse policies from the Republicans on minority rights, abortion, affirmative action, law-and-order, pension privatisation, etc.

As the Washington Post (9 November) commented: “Examination of exit polls shows that those who do vote are increasingly draw from the ranks of the most affluent Americans.” Voters with household incomes of less than $50,000 made up only 47% of those voting, compared with 61% in 1996. By contrast, 15% of voters had family incomes of over $100,000 compared to 9% in 1996.

Nader Lights the Fuse

THE MOST positive aspect of this election was Ralph Nader’s marvellous campaign. Standing on the Green Party ticket, Nader, though not a socialist, voiced the anti-big business anger that erupted in the anti-WTO protest in Seattle last November.

He boldly denounced the corruption of the political system by corporate money, demanded protection of the environment, and called for a $10-an-hour minimum wage, the restoration of union rights, and a universal health-care system.

In complete contrast to Gore and Bush, Nader attracted tens of thousands of mainly young people to his rallies, raising $8 million in small donations.

Nader (with a few results still outstanding) won 2.7 million votes or 3%, compared to 700.000 or under 1% in 1996, when Nader mounted only a token campaign. This fell short of the 5% the Green Party would need to get federal election funding in the next election.

But it is still an outstanding result which prepares the way for a future movement for radical change, independent of the Democrat/Republican machines.

Apart from Alaska, where Nader did well in 1996 and got 10% this time, his strongest showing was in the North-East: Vermont 7%, Rhode Island 6%, Maine 6%, Massachusetts 6%. Nader took 4% in California as a whole, but got much higher percentages in the cities.

Throughout the campaign, Nader came under ferocious attack from the Democratic leadership and from major national papers like the New York Times, Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times who backed Gore/Lieberman as the best executive teams for US capitalism.

They denounced him as an irresponsible, wilful, eccentric spoiler who could allow Bush to creep into the presidency. To his credit, Nader was unbending in defending the need for an independent campaign raising issues silently censored by the Big Two.

“The Republican and Democratic Parties,” said Nader, “both take money from the same big-business sources; they morph into one corporate party with two heads.”

THE CLOSENESS of the presidential result, especially with Nader taking 96,844 votes in Florida as well as significant votes in New Hampshire and Oregon (which Gore appears to have lost), intensified the stream of abuse. One leading Democrat denounced Nader for pursuing “a narcissistic, self-serving, Sancho Panza windmill-tilting expedition.”

The strategists of the ruling class fear the political effects of Nader raising issues of big-business domination, corruption, growing inequality, workers’ rights and other vital issues excluded from the “Republicrat” campaign.

“Nader fails to grasp,” thundered the Boston Globe (9 November), “that the two party system has proved durable because it forces political leaders to build coalitions… Nader and other outsiders appear appealing because they do not dirty themselves with the compromises that are essential to lead a national coalition to power.”

These elite mouthpieces fail to grasp that tens of thousands of high-school and college students, together with a section of young workers and the older generation enthusiastically support Nader just because he rejects the rotten, cash-lubricated compromises and special-interest “coalition building” which has produced the present electoral deadlock.

Many who voted for Nader would not have voted for either Gore or Bush in a two-horse race. Exit polls in New Hampshire (The Telegraph, Nashua, 10 Nov), where Gore beat Bush by 7,282 votes and Nader polled 22,156, show that 46% of Nader voters would have voted Gore in a two-horse race, 21% would have voted Bush, while 30% would not have voted at all.

On those figures, Gore would not necessarily have won this state if Nader had not been running.

But the real question is: Why did Gore fail to win a decisive majority in the country, given the usual advantages held by an incumbent vice-president during a period of economic upswing and relative prosperity?

The real reason is not Nader’s 4% but the fact that the Clinton-Gore administration stole Republican’s clothes, implemented a big-business agenda for eight years, and failed to deliver improvements to working people.

When the campaign got under way, Gore, largely to counteract Nader’s attraction, started attacking the big tobacco and pharmaceutical corporations, and warned against Bush’s proposed tax cuts for the super-rich and privatisation of social security (pensions).

Few people were taken in by this electioneering demagogy. Many voted Gore because Bush appears even worse. As before, a majority of the poorest and most oppressed working people saw no reason to vote at all.

THE ACHIEVEMENT of Nader’s campaign is that 2.7 million decisively rejected the “lesser evil” argument that it is imperative to vote Democrat to keep out a Republican president. They have rejected the Democrats’ fraudulent claim to be a progressive, left party or even a liberal party.

Any possible, marginal advantages of a Democratic presidency - such as defence of abortion rights and state-funded pensions, and the appointment of less reactionary judges to the supreme court – are now completely outweighed by the importance of taking concrete steps towards building a broad, radical Left party, completely separate from big business interests, to mobilise support for anti-big business policies and speak for working people.

Nader’s electoral challenge, with only $8 million and a very improvised campaign organisation, demonstrates the potential for an independent , third-party challenge. His result shames the trade union leaders who gave $30 or $40 million and a small army of volunteers to the Democrats – in return for what?

It has also shamed the fledgling Labor Party, launched in 1996, whose leadership has again failed to mount any campaigns for independent working-class candidates, and would not even endorse Nader.

The radicalised young people, mostly students, who turned out to the Nader rallies are the forerunners of a much wider radicalisation that in the future will embrace key sections of the working class and totally transform the political landscape of the United States.

If the momentum of this result is not to be lost, Nader and his supporters should rapidly call a conference of all the radical forces touched by his campaign, appealing to labour unions, radical women’s groups, community and minority organisations, the Labor Party and socialist organisations to discuss the launching of a radical Left party which will fight for independent representation for working people.

When a majority doesn’t count

THE ELECTORAL cliffhanger in the USA has revealed to many US voters for the first time that they do not actually decide the US president by their votes. Instead that task goes to a hand-picked electoral college, made up of loyal party hacks and supporters, who then vote in December on the new president.

The contradiction between Gore winning the popular vote, though only just, and Bush being the likely winner exposes the limits of so-called US democracy.

Apart from the fact that, whether you voted for Gore or Bush - Tweedledum or Tweedledee - there wasn’t in reality much difference between them, many voters in a majority of states would cast their vote only to find out it would make no difference to the result as the winner of a state takes all.

So, for example a Democrat voter in a strongly republican state will have no influence on the final outcome, as the winner takes all the votes in the electoral college. The recent presidential election and the intervention of Ralph Nader has brought this out for the first time.

Gore campaigners, complained that Nader votes could lose them key swing states where there was little in between the two main candidates. But it is Gore’s and Bush’s own policies that lost them votes.

But on a broader level, ‘democracy’ in the USA, like in other countries including Britain (as shown below) is very limited. Approximately only 52% of the population is registered to vote in the USA - two million prisoners are also disqualified from voting.

Of those registered less than half voted in the 1996 presidential and congressional elections. In the 2000 election the turnout was marginally up to 51% - probably because of the closeness of the votes and the increased votes for Green candidate Ralph Nader.

That means that in 1996 only 27% of the population actually voted and only 12% voted for the victorious candidates.

over $3 billion was spend on the presidential election - about $30 per voter. In 1996 the average cost of getting elected to the House of Representatives was $520,000 and a Senate seat would set a candidate back $4.6 million in campaign expenditure.

But 96% of US citizens don’t give money to any political party and the candidates are all funded by big business. As they say ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’.

IN BRITAIN a constant theme of government ministers during interviews over the fuel protests was that “democratically elected government cannot be allowed to be undermined by a small self-interest group”.

At the last general election in 1997 only about 74% of the population in Britain were registered to vote and only about 52% of the population actually voted for all the parties put together.

The New Labour government received approximately only 22% support of the population. If the abstentions, non-voters and unregistered are taken into consideration, a majority of people do not support the ‘elected’ government.

How can any these MPs argue that what happens in Parliament is the democratic expression of the views of the people, with such limited public backing?

The government had a ‘landslide’ 187-seat majority but only received 43.2% of the votes cast and have 63.4% of the seats in Parliament.

Their majority is large enough to have brought in policies which would have alleviated the problems of the majority of people. They could have also carried out measures against big business, which would have benefited farmers and other small businesses who have been involved in the fuel protests.

If they had used that majority to take away the wealth of big business and use it for the benefit of society then undoubtedly they would have secured the support of the majority of the population.

AS US president Bill Clinton hosts yet another round of ceasefire talks with Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian chairman Yasser Arafat, the death toll continues to mount in the Palestinian areas. MANDY RABIN of Maavak Sozialisti (CWI, Israel) speaks to The Socialist about the uprising and the need for a socialist solution.

Middle East Crisis: A race against time

The visit of right-wing Likud leader, Ariel Sharon, to Temple Mount on 30 September triggered the latest Palestinian uprising but what were the fundamental causes?

AFTER SEVEN years of the Oslo peace process Palestinians have gained nothing. In fact their situation has got worse in many respects - poverty and unemployment have increased.

In the West Bank and Gaza there are little islands of Palestinian control imprisoned by the Israeli army who control the roads and access between Palestinian towns.

The high-level negotiations between Arafat, Clinton and Barak are completely removed from the situation on the ground where you have a very different, quite horrific, reality.

For example, a 13-year-old Palestinian during his summer holiday went to the checkpoint at Gaza to sell soft drinks. An army jeep pulled up, a soldier got out, beat him up breaking his arm and then left him. The boy's father demanded the Israeli soldiers take him to hospital; now the family are faced with a huge bill for the ambulance and stay in hospital. The soldier concerned was never charged.

The poverty, the lack of freedom, the humiliation and frustration that the Palestinians suffer, are linked to the realisation that Oslo has brought them nothing. Added to this is the example of the Hizbollah in the Lebanon, who are seen by many Palestinians as having waged a heroic armed struggle to push the Israeli army out of the Lebanon.

YOU HAVE to ask - who designed Oslo and for what purpose? It wasn't the Palestinian masses. They want a genuine independent homeland where they can live in dignity.

The people who designed Oslo were the US government and the Israeli ruling class. Arafat's clique were pressured by imperialism into accepting it.

US imperialism and Israeli capitalism want stability in the region for easy access to oil supplies and to exploit local markets, labour and natural resources. The idea of Oslo was to stop the Intifada [uprising] and to repress Palestinians by other means, ie to use the Palestinian Authority as a puppet regime on behalf of the Israeli ruling class and US imperialism.

Can Barak and Arafat - under the pressure of US imperialism - end the violence and restart the 'peace process'?

THE UPRISING was not Arafat-initiated, therefore, his ability to stop it is limited. Arafat's support in the territories is shaky as is Barak's within Israel.

Palestinians are really angry and embittered at the corruption of Arafat's ruling elite who have got rich on Western aid while the masses are still rotting in the refugee camps - Oslo has been a sell out.

Palestinian youth feel they have nothing to lose and believe in a mass struggle - even to the death - to achieve a state. Their attitude is that they're not going to make the mistake again of calling off the struggle, like the earlier Intifada, just for open-ended negotiations.

For the first time since 1976 Israeli Palestinians have also been killed. How will this affect the prospects for working-class struggles in Israel?

PALESTINIANS LIVING in Israel feel very alienated and betrayed. They have suffered the brunt of the economic repression and unemployment and feel that the government has turned a blind eye to their suffering. So the state's response to the recent protests - including the killing of 13 Israeli Palestinians - has reinforced that alienation.

However, it hasn't completely cut across the class issues. Just recently there were massive floods which affected the poorer areas in Tel Aviv and a four-year-old Jewish boy was drowned. There was joint demonstration of Jews and Palestinians protesting at the negligence of the city council who failed to invest in the infrastructure.

What is the programme of Maavak Sozialisti? And, can the small forces of socialism in Israel make any difference to realising such a programme?

IN THE current conflict it's ordinary working-class people who are paying the price, not Barak or Arafat.

We're fighting for a socialist Israel alongside a socialist Palestine as part of a socialist confederation of the Middle East. The capitalists have failed to bring peace. Only the struggles of Jewish workers and Palestinian workers to overthrow capitalism and struggle for socialism can bring genuine peace and security to the region.

We have to explain to Israeli workers that they can never have peace and security as long as the Palestinians don't have independence and are leading a miserable life.

Also, Palestinians should adopt a strategy to try and break, along class lines, Israeli workers from the Israeli state. The Israeli ruling class is deeply unpopular and there are huge class divisions in Israel.

FIRSTLY, BY producing and circulating material explaining our position on the national question, the failure of Oslo and the socialist solution. But also, importantly, to make contact with Palestinians in different parts of the world trying to explain our position.

It's a race against time to build the forces of socialism to avoid a bloodbath in the Middle East.

Nice EU conference protest

Opposing the bosses’ charter

THOUSANDS OF protesters are expected to converge on Nice on the French Riviera from 6-8 December. This will be a European-wide protest at the European Union (EU) inter-governmental conference to draw up the Treaty of Nice.

Th conference will also push forward a so-called 'social rights charter' as well as wrestling with issues such as reforming the EU's structures in preparation for the proposed inclusion of states from Central and Eastern Europe.

The charter, unsurprisingly, really means the further erosion of social provision in Europe, worsening working conditions and employment rights. Big business will continue to enjoy every freedom of exploiting workers in Europe.

Britain's representative at the charter negotiations, Lord Goldsmith, has been ensuring that any workers' rights are subservient to national law. So New Labour will be able to retain some of the most draconian anti-trade union laws in Europe.

All European governments are pursuing the same type of neo-liberal capitalist policies. Social provision is constantly under attack, whether that be the New Deal measures in Britain - forcing people off unemployment benefit and into Mickey Mouse jobs - or the similar Plan Aide au Retour d'Emploi in France.

As with the international demonstrations against the capitalists' world financial institutions in Seattle, Washington DC, London, Melbourne and Prague, the political representatives of big business are not able to meet without attracting mass opposition. Workers and trade unionists, socialists, environmental campaigners and anti-capitalists will be involved in a wide range of initiatives.

The first demonstration called by the European Trade Union Confederation will start at 2pm, Wednesday 6 December, followed by evening meetings. The main demonstrations will take place on Thursday, continuing on Friday.

The Socialist Party will be participating in the Committee for a Workers' International contingent and activity. For more information, contact Manny Thain on 020 8988 8772.

Stop police racist backlash

THE METROPOLITAN Police is so keen to boost its numbers that it is now willing, for the first time, to consider recruiting people found guilty of “minor offences”.

Many people believe that the police are already recruiting racists. The Police Complaints Authority (PCA) annual report says that the number of public complaints about police racism has shot up by 75% this year to the highest figure ever.

At the same time, a disproportionately high number of black people die in police stations, although the total numbers were down last year.

“Ethnic minority people are wary of the police and for good reason,” an anti-racist campaigner said. The Macpherson report, which looked into how the police handled the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, criticised their deep-rooted racism.

The PCA say that after Macpherson, black and Asian people are more willing to complain. But many campaigners fear that a police backlash to Macpherson has led to police officers taking out their frustrations on ethnic minorities.

Sukhdev Reel, mother of Ricky Reel, murdered in a racist attack, told The Socialist in a recent interview: “The police think that people will just believe whatever the authorities tell them and not question their judgement. We should stand up and demand justice.

“Since the Macpherson report, there have been paper exercises and empty promises but no real change has taken place.

“Government ministers really need to come out of their offices and speak to people like us. Then they’d realise how many people are suffering because of their bad policies.”

The whole judicial system needs investigation. Zahid Mubarek, aged 19, was sentenced to 90 days at Feltham young offenders institution for shoplifting £6 worth of razor blades.

Feltham’s authorities put this Asian boy in a cell with a known racist psychopath with a violent history. The psychopath beat Zahid to death with a table leg.

Last year, the government’s chief inspector of prisons called Feltham’s regime “corrupt to the core”. People liken the anger at the treatment that young people, particularly but not exclusively black and Asian youth, get in the prisons to that against the police after Stephen Lawrence’s murder. Conditions in other prisons such as Brixton, are intolerable and could lead to riots.

Racist officers in the police and prisons should be immediately suspended but we think that the entire judicial system should be brought under the democratic control of the working class and local communities.

Railtrack… The Great Train Robbers