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SOCIALIST PARTY

Thursday, March 28, 2024

The Socialist issue 1006

22 August 2018

Blairites go on saving Tories - boot them all out!

PDF | Audio | 2018 Back issues


The Socialist issue 1006

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What we think

spotAntisemitism smears against Corbyn are battering ram of the right

In recent weeks accusations of antisemitism directed at Corbyn have resurged to a fever pitch

News

spotBlairites go on saving Tories – boot them all out!

The Tory party’s painful breakdown continues, as hardcore neoliberal Remainers like Anna Soubry pull in one direction, and right-wing populists like Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg pull in the other.

spotNationalise rail! Tories out!

Staff and passengers are on same side: Beleaguered commuters learnt on 15 August that they will face yet another increase in rail fares from January.

spotBosses’ pay up a fifth while workers’ pay falls …

The average worker would take four lifetimes to earn what the average FTSE 100 chief executive makes in one year.

spotBirmingham Prison crisis: a catastrophe of cuts and privatisation

Birmingham Prison has become the latest in a long line of catastrophic failures of privatisation, as the government is forced to step in and take over management from notorious private contractor G4S.

spotJohnson’s burqa outburst highlights racist Tory hypocrisy

Corbyn and unions can halt right populism by leading fight: Boris Johnson’s attack on Muslim women who wear the burqa – comparing them to “letterboxes” and “bank robbers” – is a sexist, dehumanising comment, with racism at its root.

spotTories fear housing anger… but offer no solutions

The government’s latest policy document on housing is a much-delayed response to mounting anger at the Grenfell Tower fire and the deep housing crisis, with unaffordable homes and increasing number sleeping rough.

Workplace

spotStrategic discussion needed in civil servants’ union after pay ballot

PCS activists have been shocked by the launch of ‘Socialist View’ – a new group set up to campaign for Janice Godrich against incumbent and Socialist Party member Chris Baugh as the union’s assistant general secretary.

spotMOJ pay offer: robbing Peter to pay Peter

Members of PCS in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) have just concluded a consultation exercise with regard to a new offer and contract called MEP (modernisation employment programme).

spotVictory: NHS workers say no to privatisation

spotLondon cleaners’ strike: ‘Pay us a living wage!’

spotLiebherr strike for better pay


spotWorkplace news in brief

Short reports on some of the latest trade union struggles including Sheffield Supertram workers win and Woolwich ferry workers strike.

International socialist news and analysis

spotArgentina: The struggle for women’s lives has been painted green!

On 8 August, Argentina’s Senate voted by 38 to 31 against legalising abortion during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.

spotHuge anti-government demos in Romania

A series of mass rallies in Bucharest and in other cities by Romanians – those living in the country and those returning from abroad – have taken place against widespread government corruption.

spotMorandi Bridge disaster – private profit to blame

Commenting on the Mirandi bridge collapse in which 43 people died, Resistenze Internazionali (CWI Italy) writes: “This disaster could and should have been avoided.”

Socialist Party reports and campaigns

spotWaltham Forest Labour council votes to close library – campaign goes on

Libraries come from a tradition of workers’ self-education. Their heyday was the 1950s when workers laboured in the factories and mines and libraries serviced a certain deprivation of the ‘soul’.

spotFight Leicester NHS cuts plan

As NHS campaigners, patients, and members of the public we are furious that those running Leicester hospitals are taking a significant step towards closing Leicester General as an acute hospital without any public consultation.

spotKeep Middlesbrough hospital staff in the NHS

Roseberry Park Hospital in Middlesbrough is a 365-bed mental health site built using a private finance initiative eight years ago at a cost of £75 million. By the end of the contract Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys Health Trust will have paid out £328 million plus maintenance costs.

spotNewcastle fans protest against Mike Ashley

The long campaign to force Mike Ashley out of Newcastle United football club continued on the first day of the season on 11 August.

spotThe Socialist sales drive – how can you help?

The Socialist is invaluable in the struggle against austerity. Whether it is reporting on the actions of workers to defend jobs and improve pay and conditions or reporting campaigns to defend public services such as the NHS.

spotEnd Runcorn school PFI rip off

Schools, colleges and universities are struggling under the weight of cutbacks forced on them by Tory austerity. In Halton, Cheshire, a wave of cuts, poor management and an ill thought out private finance initiative scheme have created crisis in the local education system.

spotHuge but chaotic Brighton Pride needs to be politicised

Members of Brighton Socialist Party attended Brighton Pride on 4 August. Although it is the UK’s biggest Pride event, drawing in more than 400,000 people this year, in recent years it has been largely depoliticised.

spotBuilding Fund boost

When meeting the funeral directors to discuss my mother’s funeral, my sister suggested that the ‘charity collection’ should go towards a dementia charity.

spotWhy I joined the Socialist Party: “I was searching for an alternative to this system”

All of us are part of something greater than ourselves. But there are huge inconsistencies among humanity – the rich next to the poor, the powerful next to the powerless.

spotRevolt and Rebellion West London walk success

18 people met on a slightly rainy Sunday afternoon for a political walk – ‘Revolt and Rebellion’ – through west London. It started at Turnham Green with a speech on the English civil war, and ended at the venue of the Putney debates.

Opinion

spotAhed Tamimi – worldwide symbol of self-esteem in face of oppression

Non-fiction: Ahed Tamimi – a girl who fought back: On the morning of the last Sunday in July, Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi was released from an Israeli prison, where she had been for eight months since her arrest on 19 December 2017.

spotUnion bureaucracies, soviets and workers’ power

Non-fiction: Workers control and workers management: ‘Workers control and workers management: work in the unions’ is the new book from Socialist Party member Ted Mooney.

spotThe Socialist Inbox

Letters to the Socialist’s editors including antisemitism and Labour, Trump, plastic and food and more.

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