Archive for December 2004

4 December 2004

DWP needs more experienced staff, not less

DWP computer crash - private companies fail public services... again: LAST WEEK, the biggest computer crash in government history hit the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)...

4 December 2004

Brighton teaching assistants fight council attacks

Defend public services: BY STRIKING on 25-26 November, teaching assistants (TAs) across Brighton and Hove showed their willingness to fight the council to receive a fair and decent salary...

4 December 2004

Save the Jag! Renationalise Jaguar to save jobs

THOUSANDS OF workers demonstrated in support of Jaguar workers at Coventry's Browns Lane plant - who are facing redundancies and closure at the hands of car multinational Ford - on Saturday 27 November...

4 December 2004

UNISON general secretary election: A fighting programme to defend pensions

"YOU'VE GOT five months to save your pension." That's how Roger Bannister, who is standing in the general secretary election campaign in public sector union UNISON, described the threat to council workers' pensions...

4 December 2004

Which Revolution?

Which Revolution, directed by Asociación Civil Ciudadania Activa, Venezuela 2004...

4 December 2004

Committee for a Workers' International: Building the forces of socialism worldwide

Committee for a Workers' International: THE INTERNATIONAL Executive Committee (IEC, the elected leadership of the Committee for a Workers' International - CWI) recently met to discuss the impending crisis in the world economy, the effect of Bush's re-election and the continuing bloody occupation of Iraq and Europe...

4 December 2004

Iraq election crisis

Seventeen political groups, mostly Sunni, have called for the postponement of elections in Iraq, scheduled for 30 January. They include the party of the stooge interim prime minister Iyad Alawi and former foreign minister Adnan Pachachi...

4 December 2004

Socialist Party councillor elected in Australia

SOCIALIST PARTY member Stephen Jolly has won a seat in Langridge Ward in the Yarra City Council elections in Melbourne, Australia. This is the first electoral victory for the socialist movement in Australia for many years...

4 December 2004

Ukraine: Neither Yanukovych or Yuschenko

AS THE socialist goes to press, Ukraine's supreme court is expected to rule on the country's disputed presidential election...

4 December 2004

Fighting fund Christmas appeal

The Socialist Party is appealing for donations to our funds this Christmas...

4 December 2004

No top-up fees

National union of students demo: THE NATIONAL Union of Students (NUS) has called a demonstration in Cardiff on 2 December, to protest against top-up fees. New Labour has decided that burdening students with fees of over £1,000 a year and getting rid of grants and replacing them...

4 December 2004

Blair's election strategy threatens democratic rights

NEW LABOUR'S general election strategy is now clear. They say "vote Labour" for tough measures on law and order and to fight the 'war on terror'...

4 December 2004

NHS not safe in Labour's hands

IT WAS 'black Wednesday' for the health service in Wales on 24 November. The New Labour-dominated Welsh Assembly government announced the effective closure of the paediatric neurosurgery unit at Swansea's Morriston hospital...

4 December 2004

Pre-budget statement: Workers will pay for economic failure

CHANCELLOR GORDON Brown's pre-budget statement will probably be the last before the expected general election in May. This could come just in time for the New Labour government as they will have to face some unpalatable economic and financial...

4 December 2004

Private hands off public services

PRIVATE FINANCE Initiative (PFI) deals have always been extremely profitable for private contractors. But recent reports show what a bad deal it's been for public services such as the NHS and how much greedy private companies use it to fill...

11 December 2004

Fighting the fire service cuts

FIREFIGHTERS IN Coventry have started to fight back against plans to reduce night time fire cover in the city...

11 December 2004

BBC jobs under threat

NEW BBC director general, Mark Thompson, has announced cuts of £320 million a year, which will result in thousands of job cuts. About 3,000 jobs are expected to go, over 2,000 people will be expected to move to Manchester by 2008...

11 December 2004

Challenge to UNISON'S Labour links by UNISON general secretary candidate

UNISON's forthcoming General Secretary election will see a clear challenge to the union's links with the Labour Party given the announcement that North West NEC member Roger Bannister has secured sufficient branch nominations to contest the election.

11 December 2004

Belgium: Fighting the fascists in Gent

Fifteen hundred students and young people marched through the streets of Gent on the night of 3 December to counter the demonstration organised by NSV, the fascist student wing of Vlaams Belang, (the renamed Vlaams Blok)...

11 December 2004

Italy stops in fifth general strike against Berlusconi

ON 30 November in Italy there was the fifth general strike against the Berlusconi government. It stopped the country...

11 December 2004

Concrete steps towards formation of new party

AGAINST THE background of increased attacks on living standards and working conditions, important sections of the working class in Germany have drawn the conclusion that an organisational and political alternative to the neo-liberal policies of Chancellor Gerhard Schroder and Co...

11 December 2004

USA: Poverty in the world's richest country

"LIFE, LIBERTY, and the Pursuit of Happiness." This is supposedly what the dream of America offers, but does this hold true for the 35.9 million Americans living in poverty today, according to the 2004 U.S. Census Bureau report?...

11 December 2004

Christmas 2004 Appeal Letter

The Socialist Party is appealing for donations to our funds this Christmas. ...

11 December 2004

Britain's Guantanamo

EIGHT MEN, imprisoned on suspicion of being 'linked to' terrorism, are suffering from: "Major depressive anxiety disorder and some are experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder"...

11 December 2004

Saving pensions: united action needed

WHEN CHANCELLOR Gordon Brown announced 104,000 civil service job cuts in his last budget, Socialist Party trade unionists called for a one-day public-sector strike in response to New Labour's public-sector onslaught...

11 December 2004

Private contractors rip off public services

GORDON BROWN'S pre-budget speech ignored many important problems, not least about the funding of vital public services such as the NHS...

11 December 2004

Schools victory!

THE DAY before the picket we'd organised at Debenham's, the news came through. Millionaire Jasper Conran, designer of fashions, homeware, jewellery and fragrances could now no longer add McEntee Secondary School in east London...

11 December 2004

US plans crumble in Iraq

"IT IS a mess in Iraq". The UN special envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, was certainly to the point. Elections, he said, would not be possible on the 30 January "if the circumstances stay as they are"...

11 December 2004

Bring the troops home

ANOTHER £520 million for war in Iraq. That's how much Gordon Brown announced in his pre-budget report on 2 December...