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What we think
Antisemitism 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
Blairites 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.
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.
Bosses’ 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.
Birmingham 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.
Johnson’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.
Tories 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
Strategic 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.
MOJ 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).
Victory: NHS workers say no to privatisation
London cleaners’ strike: ‘Pay us a living wage!’
Liebherr strike for better pay
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
Argentina: 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.
Huge 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.
Morandi 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
Waltham 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’.
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.
Keep 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.
Newcastle 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.
The 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.
End 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.
Huge 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.
When meeting the funeral directors to discuss my mother’s funeral, my sister suggested that the ‘charity collection’ should go towards a dementia charity.
Why 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.
Revolt 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
Ahed 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.
Union 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.
Letters to the Socialist’s editors including antisemitism and Labour, Trump, plastic and food and more.