In this week's issue:

The Socialist 22 July 2008, issue 543

Stop The Gas Price Rip-Off

Household bills set to soar: MANY PEOPLE'S minds were recently jerked away from planning their summer holidays, into a cold and wintry future. The privatised gas and energy supplier Centrica predicted that average gas bills could rise from £600 to over £1,000 in 2010...

Car taxes add to inflation misery

Local government strike

Build further action after successful council strike

Unison Local Government strike 16-17 July in London, photo Paul Mattsson

Editorial: The successful local government strike on 16 and 17 July in England, Wales and Northern Ireland involving unions Unison and Unite, was the biggest strike so far in opposition to the government's pay freeze...

Reports of the Unsion strike

Pictures of the Unison strike

Socialist Party workplace news

Argos workers strike against insulting pay offer

Argos workers in the Unite union on a 24-hour strike, photo Leicester Socialist Party

Reports: Basildon distribution plant: On 17 April Argos workers in the Unite union started a 24-hour strike against an insulting pay offer of 3.8%, and the employer's attempt to move them from weekly to monthly pay without any compensation...

London bus drivers' protest

PCS strikes

Usdaw election

Socialist Party news and analysis

Punishing the jobless for being jobless

Work and pensions secretary, James Purnell, has announced a major attack on benefits claimants in his new welfare green paper. His claim that the changes will "transform lives" will be borne out, but disgracefully it will be in a transformation for for the worse...

Bankers' dirty tricks?

International socialist news and analysis

Say no to military attack on Iran

GORDON BROWN'S recent bellicose, anti-Iran speech in the Israeli Knesset is part of a ratcheting up of pressure which could lead to the nightmare scenario of an attack on Iran, writes Sarah Sachs-Eldridge.

Political impasse in the Kurdish region of Iraq

Pakistan: 50,000 textile workers strike