4 April 2007

Brown's pension robbery

THE TIMES has revealed that one of Gordon Brown's first acts as chancellor in 1997 was to give big business the green light to cut workers' occupational pension schemes....

4 April 2007

Take national action to defend education

Teachers face heavy workloads, stress, performance pay: AT THE National Union of Teachers (NUT) conference this year, teachers are discussing how to resist government attacks on our pay and conditions and on comprehensive education...

4 April 2007

Labour's market policies damage education

Growing inequality in schools: A DECADE ago, Tony Blair famously announced that "education, education, education" would be his top priority...

4 April 2007

NUS leadership abandon fees fight

YOU WOULD think that National Union of Students (NUS) conference would be a place to implement plans of action on how to fight for the rights that students deserve...

4 April 2007

Iran - Sailors fall victim to imperialist policies

Editorial: CLAIM AND counter-claim from the Iranian and British governments has followed the Iranian government's capture and release of fifteen British marines and sailors, allegedly for trespassing into Iranian waters...

4 April 2007

Trade union leaders heckled over inaction

Building workers' lobby: OVER 3,000 construction workers descended on London on 28 March for a trade union rally and lobby of parliament against appalling conditions in the building industry...

4 April 2007

One Life: Ricky Tomlinson

Ricky Tomlinson

Review: Based on the events of the jailing of Ricky Tomlinson and Des Warren by the Heath government in 1972, this programme gripped you by the throat from the outset, writes Tony Mulhearn ...

4 April 2007

Action needed as Ford bosses close Leamington plant

CAR WORKERS are responding angrily to the closure of Ford's Leamington foundry in the West Midlands...

4 April 2007

London strikers close passport office

Civil service pay: STRIKING PCS members shut down the head office of the Identity and Passport Service on 30 March in London...

4 April 2007

Anger on Newport picket line

PCS REPS on the picket line in Newport expressed their anger at the imposed below-inflation pay increase. ...

4 April 2007

Upbeat London rally

OVER 80 striking Ministry Of Defence and passport office workers joined other PCS members for a very upbeat London rally....

4 April 2007

Celebs fail to save Burberry

FEELINGS RAN high as Burberry workers marched out of the Treorchy plant for the last time last week...

4 April 2007

Blair: No solutions to crime or crowded prisons

Blair's crime review: TONY BLAIR has had 53 'law and order' bills passed in ten years at number ten, but still thinks he isn't being tough enough on crime yet...

4 April 2007

Greenwich: "We've got to strike"

Workers' anger over council cuts: OVER 100 people, mainly blue-collar workers, lobbied Greenwich council's meeting on 28 March, booing the councillors who were trying to cut their wages drastically...

4 April 2007

Ammanford home care workers march

ABOUT 200 protesters attended a GMB, T&G and UNISON-organised march in the ex-mining town of Ammanford on 30 March against Carmarthenshire county council's plans to privatise the in-house home carers service....

4 April 2007

Waltham Forest protest - more memorable than Prince Charles!

WHEN SOCIALIST Party members discovered that an unpublicised visit was taking place in the refurbished Walthamstow Library, we decided we needed to be at this event...

4 April 2007

Frustration at demo delay

NHS meeting: HEALTH GROUP People United Saving Hospitals (PUSH) campaigners met in Coventry on 31 March...

4 April 2007

We shall not be moved!

When we started our regular petitioning against NHS cuts outside entrance number one of Hope hospital in Salford last Sunday, little did we know that we would only last for two minutes...

4 April 2007

Burslem postal workers strike again

DURING THE latest three days of strike action on 30, 31 March and 2 April, by postal workers at Burslem in Stoke-on-Trent, numbers on the picket line have grown and the mood is even more determined...

4 April 2007

British government and local parties retreat on water charges

Northern Ireland: IN A major climb down by both the British government and local parties the proposed introduction of water charges in Northern Ireland has been postponed for 12 months...

4 April 2007

We Won't Pay Campaign

WWPC GREETED the fact that the bills won't go out this year as a "victory for non-payment" but added: "this does not go far enough...

4 April 2007

Save Sadiq Abakar

Darfur: Deported asylum seekers tortured and murdered: AN INVESTIGATION by the United Nations (UN) in 2005 accused the Sudan-backed Janjaweed militias of carrying out the mass murder of civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan...

4 April 2007

Leicester protesters challenge Home Office

A LIVELY and very tuneful demonstration of the Congolese community took place in Leicester on 28 March protesting at deportations of Congolese asylum seekers back to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)...

4 April 2007

In The Line of Fire

Book review: PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, Pakistan's military dictator in presidential clothing, is unlikely to survive in his post much longer...

4 April 2007

Days of Glory

International Human Rights film festival: THIS OSCAR-nominated World War Two drama follows the journey of North African (Indigénes) soldiers fighting their way through southern Europe helping to liberate France, their 'mother country'...

4 April 2007

Commemorating the abolition of the slave trade

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. The Socialist Party's London Black and Asian group held a public meeting on...

4 April 2007

Children suffer in low pay Britain

'Shock - child poverty increases' shouted the headlines last week. The figures are shocking; last year there were 200,000 more children living in poverty...

5 April 2007

Campaign for a New Workers' Party

Campaign for a New Workers' Party

Conference

Saturday 12 May 12pm-5pm

University College London, Cruciform Building, Gower Street, London WC1. (nearest Tubes: Euston Square, Euston)

To register and more info visit: www.cnwp.org.uk

5 April 2007

How to stop the BNP: Build a political alternative

How to stop the BNP: ON 29 March 100 trade unionists and anti-racist activists gathered for a midday demonstration in Liverpool city centre...

5 April 2007

PCS members take industrial action

ON 30 March, thousands of PCS members working in the Land Registry and other government departments, started a month of industrial action short of strike action...

5 April 2007

Privilege and privation in our schools

Lewisham: THE DIVIDE between schools is particularly obvious in a big city like London...

12 April 2007

Coventry - Socialist Party's track record

The work and pressure of the three Socialist Party councillors in Coventry has helped in many of the battles fought by themselves and local people, including:...

12 April 2007

'Climate change will hit poorest of poor hardest'

Climate change demo December 2005, photo Paul Mattsson

International socialist action needed: In February a UN-sponsored international committee of scientists, the IPCC, issued Part One of a report that concluded that climate change had started, was a result of human activity (principally the burning of fossil fuels.

12 April 2007

Nuclear power is not the answer

Climate change debate: THE LABOUR government's proposed "solution" to concerns about oil and gas supplies and the menace of global warming is to push ahead with a programme of renewing nuclear power stations...

12 April 2007

Is the Green Party heading left or right?

PETE DICKENSON asks: are socialists like Derek Wall just giving a left cover to what remains a pro-establishment capitalist party, in action if not words...

12 April 2007

Battling over the world's oil reserves

ALISTAIR TICE looks at the rivalry for access to the world's oil supplies and assesses the likely consequences for the world economy, and the continued dominance of US imperialism....

12 April 2007

Join the International Youth Camp

G8 Summit June 2007: HUNDREDS OF thousands of people were on Edinburgh's streets in 2005 for the Make Poverty History demonstration organised around the G8 summit in Gleneagles...

12 April 2007

France: Workers need to build a Left alternative

French presidential elections: THE LONG build-up to the French presidential election is nearly over, with the four main candidates now battling it out in the media in the final stage of the campaign...

12 April 2007

Workers' lives get tougher under New Labour

THE LEAD story in The Observer on 8 April "Exclusive poll: public says PM has failed to improve country" did not surprise most working-class people, they know life has worsened under Blair's government....

12 April 2007

Campaign for a New Workers' Party

Campaign for a New Workers' Party

Conference

Saturday 12 May 12noon to 5pm

Speakers include: Ricky Tomlinson, Justice for the Shrewsbury Pickets

University College London, Cruciform Building, Gower Street, London WC1

(nearest tubes: Goodge Street, Euston Square, Euston)

To register and for more info visit www.cnwp.org.uk

12 April 2007

Union leaders out of touch with teachers' discontent

NUT conference: THE NATIONAL Union of Teachers (NUT) conference demonstrated just how many different attacks teachers and education face under New Labour...

12 April 2007

NUJ: Build on the victories

NUJ Conference: THE NATIONAL Union of Journalists (NUJ) is holding its Centenary Annual Delegate Meeting (ADM) on 12-15 April. ...

12 April 2007

Fury at jobs massacre

THREE WEEKS after being told by managers that their jobs were safe, workers at Clares Merchandise Handling Equipment in Wells, Somerset have received the devastating news that the factory is to be closed with immediate effect...

12 April 2007

UNISON and PCS: Vote for fighting, democratic unions

UNISON and PCS elections: ELECTIONS FOR UNISON's National Executive Council are under way. Six Socialist Party members with a track record of campaigning for and representing UNISON...

12 April 2007

PCS: All out on 1 May

THOUSANDS OF Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) members will be on strike on 1 May in defence of the public sector and pay, jobs and services...

12 April 2007

Zimbabwe: State thugs crackdown on protests

Economic meltdown pushes masses to the edge: AN ACUTE political, economic and social crisis is gripping Zimbabwe. With mass unemployment, hyper-inflation and crumbling services, Zimbabwe's trade...

12 April 2007

Why legal aid should be defended

WORKERS HAVE only ever won legal 'rights' through struggle. Even then, there is not much point in having these rights if you cannot assert them at court....

12 April 2007

Blair silent on Guantanamo

THE CAPTURE and subsequent release by Iran of 15 British sailors has largely obscured news of the release of a British resident from the US's military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba...

12 April 2007

Fight for a socialist alternative

3 May elections: 'He's just the same as Blair, he says there's a tax cut, but it's only for the rich'...

19 April 2007

Nurses' fury at cuts and attacks on jobs

NHS in crisis: NURSES AND other workers in the National Health Service are angry at cuts in the NHS...

19 April 2007

NHS London - delivering private health

NHS LONDON, the biggest of the strategic health authorities, is full of voices standing up for private profit in the health service...

19 April 2007

Build for national action against fees

Cardiff Socialist Students campaign, photo Dave Reid

Join the Campaign to Defeat Fees 27 April day of action: Students live in a world of soaring debt, unaffordable or condemned housing, low-paid jobs with poor quality working conditions, course cuts and department closures...

19 April 2007

Leicester: A principled stand against opportunists

A Mercedes pulls up outside the Leicester Royal Infirmary; out jumps a group of Liberal Democrats holding placards saying "Liberals against NHS cuts"...

19 April 2007

Wales manifesto launch

SOCIALIST PARTY Wales launched its election manifesto for the Wales assembly outside Cardiff Royal Infirmary. ...

19 April 2007

Save our NHS campaign fields five candidates in South Lakes

South Lakes: SAVE OUR NHS are standing five candidates in the local elections for South Lakes District Council in Cumbria...

19 April 2007

Young socialist standing for Save Huddersfield NHS

THE CAMPAIGN of Save Huddersfield NHS to elect a second fighting, socialist councillor has carried on from where it left off last year. ...

19 April 2007

Nursery cuts campaign launch

"Enough is enough. It's time for the working class to make a stand!" Gloria from the striking Unique care workers set the tone for an evening of class...

19 April 2007

Making a difference in Lincoln

This week saw another successful Socialist Party stall on Lincoln High Street, campaigning to defend public services and against the far-right....

19 April 2007

Vote Socialist Alternative on 3 May

Where we are standing: Baguley, Manchester: Lynn Worthington...

19 April 2007

RMT victory: Union militancy pays

Editorial: THE LONDON underground system almost closed down for three days last week as Metronet tube maintenance workers, members of the RMT union, prepared to strike, determined their jobs would not be outsourced ...

19 April 2007

Tube workers win big victory over Metronet

London Underground: RAIL UNION RMT members working for Metronet tube maintenance company have won a magnificent victory, after the company withdrew plans to transfer RMT members and their posts to Bombardier, part of the Metronet consortium....

19 April 2007

Wanted - a new mass party for workers

Ricky Tomlinson, photo Harry Smith

CNWP conference 12 May: THE CAMPAIGN for a New Workers' Party (CNWP) conference will bring together trade unionists and community and environmental campaigners who want to see the building of a new mass workers' party in England and Wales.

Speakers include Ricky Tomlinson, Justice for the Shrewsbury Pickets

Ricky Tomlinson explained the case for the CNWP to the Liverpool Echo.

19 April 2007

Campaigning for a £26,000 minimum wage

NUJ conference: "THERE SEEMS to be a bit of a right-wing wind blowing this year," was how some delegates commented on this year's centenary conference (ADM) of the National Union of Journalists...

19 April 2007

Young trade unionists reject New Labour

THE TUC Youth Conference took place from 13-15 April, attended by around 50 young trade union activists. ...

19 April 2007

Greenwich UNISON steps up fight against pay cuts

GREENWICH UNISON is preparing to lobby Greenwich council again in defence of council workers' pay and in support of equal pay for low-paid workers. ...

19 April 2007

Venezuela: Will the trade unions give up their independence?

THE VENEZUELAN president has announced the need to create a united socialist party, capable of transforming Venezuela and setting out on the road to socialism...

19 April 2007

Bush's man at the World Bank in corruption scandal

WORLD BANK president Paul Wolfowitz is under fire, mired in a corruption scandal...

19 April 2007

Bosses' Pension

LORD BROWNE, retiring chief executive of Britain's biggest oil company BP, has faced complaints from shareholders over his remuneration package...

19 April 2007

Blockading Britain's warhead factory

IT IS 7am on 9 April. We are walking towards the Aldermaston base where Britain manufactures its nuclear warheads. The entire area is crawling with police,...

19 April 2007

Fighting for the right to walk in the countryside

DIRECT ACTION by workers from Manchester and Sheffield 75 years ago is the most famous act of a movement to reclaim parts of Britain from the ruling class...

19 April 2007

Cuts reduce advice for the people who most need help

THE ARTICLE in last week's the socialist by John Greene, on legal aid cuts, highlighted a growing problem that faces millions of working people - and not just in the areas he mentioned, but also in their claims for welfare b...

19 April 2007

Bank that only serves the rich

IN AN outrageous display of capitalist elitism, HSBC, "the world's local bank", is shutting one of its Dorset branches in the Canford Cliffs area to anyone who does not have more than £50,000 savings, a £200,000 mortgage o...

19 April 2007

Kick big business out of the NHS

NHS demonstration, 1 November 2006, photo Alison Hill

HEALTH WORKERS are having to fight hard for their jobs and services. What happened to the NHS's founding principles, of quality health care 'free at the point of delivery' in a publicly owned and run health service?

26 April 2007

Join the campaign to defeat fees

Southampton Socialist Students campaigning

If you're fed up with student fees and debt...: EDUCATION MINISTER Alan Johnson boasts about how Britain's universities are a source of "national pride and international envy"...

26 April 2007

New Labour - lowest poll ratings since 1983

What we think: IN THE Thursday 3 May elections, 10,456 seats across 312 local authorities in England are being contested...

26 April 2007

Come to the Campaign for a New Workers' Party conference

"ABANDONED BY Labour, working people need a political voice. This event is an important stage in addressing the crisis of political representation and...

26 April 2007

Campaign for a New Workers' Party conference

CNWP conference

Campaign for a New Workers' Party conference

Saturday 12 May 12 - 5 pm

University College London, Gower Street.

To register or find out more visit www.cnwp.org.uk

Speakers include:

Ricky Tomlinson - actor and Shrewsbury Two Campaign

Chris Baugh - PCS assistant general secretary

Dave Nellist - Socialist Party councillor

Mel Mills - Huddersfield parent - campaigning against the closure of local nurseries

Tony Mulhearn - Liverpool 47

26 April 2007

Support for Labour falling in Scotland

Scottish Parliament election: Elections for the Scottish Parliament and local councils are to be held on 3 May...

26 April 2007

Civil servants' union May Day strike

PCS on strike in February 2007, photo Paul Mattsson

PCS MEMBERS will be striking again on 1 May. This is part of a national strategy to defend not only our jobs, pay and pensions but also the vital services...

26 April 2007

Socialist solidarity on May Day

THE SOCIALIST sends May Day greetings to all our readers. We have received a record number of greetings this year; many of them are printed in this special...

26 April 2007

Socialist wins court battle in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan: LAST WEEK the Alma-Ata city Procurer (legal prosecutor), Kazakhstan, demanded the arrest and imprisonment, for 15 days, of Ainur Kurmanov, a well-known CWI member and opposition socialist activist in Kazakhstan...

26 April 2007

Support the Sunvic strikers

SINCE 21 March, 42 women shop floor workers have been out on strike at Sunvic Controls, Uddingston, Scotland....

26 April 2007

No victimisation - support Deeside college lecturers

TOWARDS THE end of 2006, the University and College Union (UCU) rejected a pay offer from the Welsh employers' organisation Fforwm, declared a dispute and began to ballot for strike action....

26 April 2007

France: Record turnout sees Royal and Sarkozy go through to second round

THE FIRST round of the French presidential elections last Sunday left capitalist commentators in an almost jubilant mood...

26 April 2007

Campaign to Defeat Fees National Meeting

Come to the Campaign to Defeat Fees national meeting on 1 September to plan national action in the first term of next year ...

26 April 2007

Yeltsin's real record - 'wild capitalism' in Russia

IT IS sickening for the impoverished working people of the ex-Soviet Union to see the praise heaped on Russia's former president Boris Yeltsin after his death...

26 April 2007

US mass shooting horror

THE SHOOTING at Virginia Tech, the worst mass shooting in modern US history, shocked people in the US and around the world...

26 April 2007

UNISON Delegates demand action

UNISON health conference: UNISON HEALTH conference began with an air of business as usual as delegates streamed into the Brighton conference centre on a sunny Sunday morning...

26 April 2007

Nigerian elections - a dangerous farce

EVEN BY the standards of Nigeria's previous elections this April's state and national elections were a complete farce....

26 April 2007

Donate to fund a socialist alternative

Elections 3 May: The Socialist Party is standing this year in local elections and Welsh Assembly elections to provide a socialist alternative to the parties of big business...

26 April 2007

Campaigning for socialist ideas in South Wales

Wales International Socialist Resistance campaigning

"Could I have a copy of your paper - I want to piss the Labour Party off" a worker said as we campaigned against hospital cutbacks in Aberdare in the South Wales valleys, next to the Labour Party's little red balloon campa...

26 April 2007

Huddersfield: Fighting against NHS cuts and closures

Ian Slattery, Huddersfield Save our NHS candidate

Huddersfield Socialist Party has been involved in a number of local battles against cuts and privatisation, and is now helping to develop the various campaigns further through fighting for anti-cuts candidates in the 3 May lo...

26 April 2007

Coventry socialists fight Post Office closure

Coventry Socialist Party campaigning

COVENTRY SOCIALISTS have reacted angrily to the news that their city centre's Post Office is to close...

26 April 2007

Southampton: Save our Services!

IN SOUTHAMPTON, Socialists are backing the building of a united campaign of taxpayers and council workers to stop over £6 million worth of cuts.

26 April 2007

Brighton: Stop privatisation

IN BRIGHTON the Socialist Party is standing two candidates (Phil Clarke and Andy Clarke) as part of a three-strong socialist slate in the Hollingbury and Stanmer ward...

26 April 2007

Merseyside: Tweedledee, Tweedledum, Bootle has a real socialist alternative

IF YOU thought the main political parties were all the same, these parties are falling over themselves to prove the point in Bootle...

26 April 2007

Manchester Wythenshawe: NHS cuts threaten lives

MANCHESTER HEALTH campaigner Lynn Worthington has condemned as an "unnecessary and avoidable tragedy," the deaths of prematurely born babies due to a shortage of local premature baby (neonatal) units...

26 April 2007

Blair's legacy... war, cuts & privatisation

Vote socialist on 3 May THE ELECTIONS on Thursday 3 May will be a chance for voters to reject New Labour and a last chance to reject it under Tony Blair's leadership...