Archive for May 2005

6 May 2005

Defend education in Hackney

MORE THAN 120 people packed into a meeting in Hackney, east London, on 26 April to put their demands to election candidates...

6 May 2005

Strike ballot at the BBC

TRADE UNIONS at the BBC are balloting for strike action after Director General Mark Thompson refused to guarantee there will be no compulsory redundancies following the corporation's recent announcement...

6 May 2005

The Vietnam war still casts a long shadow over US today

30 years since the fall of Saigon: THIRTY YEARS ago, North Vietnamese tanks rolled into the US embassy in Saigon marking a humiliating defeat for US imperialism...

6 May 2005

Protest at the G8 summit

THIS JULY, the G8 - the bosses' club - will meet in Scotland, under the presidency of the British government...

6 May 2005

Blair’s last election

New Labour celebrations after its election win were muted and short-lived...

6 May 2005

Fight far-right parties

ONE OF the most worrying aspects of this election has been the high votes in some areas for far-right parties like the British National Party (BNP)...

6 May 2005

Stormclouds gather over Labour's 3^rd term

IT WOULDN'T have come as much of a surprise to most people when they woke up on Friday 6 May and found that New Labour had been elected for a third time...

6 May 2005

Socialist ideas adopted by a new generation

The ‘most boring election’ in history ended with a far-from boring election night...

6 May 2005

Galloway election victory shocks Blair

The high-profile victory of George Galloway, standing for Respect in Bethnal Green and Bow, will be welcomed by many around the country – as an antidote to an election campaign which, at national level, has...

6 May 2005

Labour gets a bloody nose

THE ELECTION result clearly shows that growing numbers have had enough of Tony Blair and this New Labour government....

12 May 2005

UNISON health conference: Fight low pay and privatisation, defend pensions

IN THE final two days of UNISON health conference, the implementation of the Agenda for Change (AfC) agreement was discussed...

12 May 2005

Amicus conference: Size isn't everything

ONE OF the most important issues to be discussed at the forthcoming Amicus conference is the recent proposal for a merger between the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU), Amicus and the GMB...

12 May 2005

Workers demand justice on pensions

"NEW LABOUR elected on Thursday, workers on the march on Saturday"...

12 May 2005

Left victory in firefighters' union

THE DECISIVE victory of Matt Wrack in the ballot for the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) represents a big step forward for the union and the trade union movement in general...

12 May 2005

Big vote for socialism in Bolsover

SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE candidate Jon Dale received nearly 26% of the vote standing in the Bolsover SW and Scarcliffe division of Derbyshire county council...

12 May 2005

Building a base in Lewisham

'I ALWAYS vote for Ian Page and the socialists in local elections but, because you can't win this time, I'm going to vote for one of the main parties', was a constant response met by Socialist Party canvassers in the...

12 May 2005

Coventry - the best campaign ever

SOME PEOPLE called this the 'no choice' election but it's more like the 'little change' election - at least on the surface...

12 May 2005

Polarisation widens in Northern Ireland

NORTHERN IRELAND'S general election results confirmed what the Socialist Party expected - that two main sectarian blocks would dominate...

12 May 2005

Discontent with the 'Blair project'

THE POLITICAL map of Wales remains overwhelmingly Labour, despite the fact that it lost five seats and saw its share of the vote drop by almost 6%...

12 May 2005

Rebuilding SSP support under a third Labour term

Scotland - general election 2005: IN SCOTLAND, the opposition to New Labour policies was underlined by a 4.5% fall in their vote to 39.5% compared to the election of 2001...

12 May 2005

Blair battered but what's the alternative?

"UNBURIED CORPSE" "Dead Man walking" - the champagne glasses had hardly been washed at Labour Party HQ and the knives were out for Tony Blair...

12 May 2005

1945 - Victory in Europe: When 'liberation' meant socialism

COMMEMORATIONS MARKING the 60th anniversary 'victory in Europe' (VE) day have concentrated on the sacrifices made by the service men and women in liberating Europe from the clutches of fascism...

12 May 2005

Join the G8 protest

EVERY FIVE seconds a child dies from hunger and disease, yet global food aid has actually fallen by 50% over the last five years...

12 May 2005

Everyone has a right to education

Being a student and a parent: COMING TO university for the first time can be daunting as it often means uprooting yourself from your home, friends and family for extended periods...

12 May 2005

Defend public services

New Labour wastes billions on consultants: A SHOCKING report has just been published which reveals that the government spent nearly £2 billion on management consultants last year...

12 May 2005

NHS - Stop the profit vultures

DURING THE election, Blair and other New Labour politicians said they were pumping money into the NHS to save vital services...

19 May 2005

Calls for an end to trade union passivity at Amicus conference

THE FIRST, and possibly last, conference of manufacturing and general services union Amicus took place this week...

19 May 2005

Week-long strike at London Met

College lecturers fight back: LECTURERS AT London Met University are on strike for a week against management's attempts to force almost 400 of them into a contract they don't want...

19 May 2005

Firefighters urge union to face up to challenges

DELEGATES AT the annual conference of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) called on the union to face up to the challenge of a whole raft of assaults on Fire Service conditions and prepare for industrial action if...

19 May 2005

Royal Mail privatisation threat after workers deliver record profits

ROYAL MAIL bosses are planning to borrow £2 billion from the government so that they can partly privatise the company by giving shares to the workforce...

19 May 2005

The curse of long working hours

THE HYPOCRISY of the government and the bosses reached new depths last week...

19 May 2005

USA: Time to mobilise and fight back

LAST NOVEMBER, George Bush won re-election by distracting a section of voters with the ‘war on terrorism’ and appeals to "traditional values"...

19 May 2005

Revolt and repression in Uzbekistan

AT LEAST 700 people were brutally massacred by government troops in Uzbekistan over the weekend...

19 May 2005

E=mc² - how Einstein changed our understanding of the universe

19 May 2005

Desperate smears on George Galloway

GEORGE GALLOWAY, the Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow has only been back in the Commons for a few weeks...

19 May 2005

Football: Fans protest at billionaire’s takeover

ABOUT 2,000 men, women and young people came out on 12 May - some still in their work clothes or school uniforms...

19 May 2005

Standing for socialism at Blackheath High

19 May 2005

Hands off incapacity benefit

THE QUEEN’S speech on 17 May shows what Blair intends to do in the first part of his third term...

19 May 2005

More bad news for economy

FOR BLAIR and Brown this was the 'just-in-time' election. "If the election had been delayed a few months, the party might have found...

19 May 2005

Public health not private profit

DISABLED PEOPLE will have their benefit cut while big business get a £3 billion windfall from the NHS...

26 May 2005

Defend NATFHE members, safeguard union democracy

THIS YEAR'S conference of the lecturers' union NATFHE takes place at the same time as the continuing employers' offensive in both further and higher education (FE and HE)...

26 May 2005

Left victory in PCS union

THE CIVIL service union PCS national executive committee (NEC) elections have resulted in a resounding victory for the left in the union...

26 May 2005

Telecom workers' strike against privatisation

THE MUSHARRAF government has launched a massive new privatisation campaign worth $1.7 billion...

26 May 2005

Northern Ireland - fighting for socialism

THE SOCIALIST Party in Northern Ireland has been fighting now for decades to end the problems of sectarian divisions through a working-class, socialist and internationalist solution...

26 May 2005

Germany - workers punish Schröder

FOLLOWING THE catastrophic, though not unexpected, election result in the region of North Rhine Westphalia, the German social democrat (SDP) Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, announced an early general election fo...

26 May 2005

G8 Protest - Demonstrate at the G8 - Make capitalism history

26 May 2005

Kick the fat cats out of football

OVER 500 Manchester United fans crowded into a public meeting in Manchester on 19 May...

26 May 2005

BBC workers striking back at job cuts

MEMBERS OF the three main unions at the BBC - BECTU, NUJ and Amicus - were out on strike in force on 23 May...

26 May 2005

Our rights under attack

LABOUR'S REDUCED majority in their third term seems to have done nothing to curb their zeal for introducing anti-working-class, anti-democratic legislation...

26 May 2005

Brown bashes low-paid workers

LABOUR'S CONTEMPT for low-paid workers was revealed again last week as Gordon Brown called for "wage discipline" in the public sector...