In this week's issue:

The Socialist 4 August 2010, issue Con-Dem cuts mean: we need ‘biggest movement since poll tax’

PCS members striking against Labour's cuts, photo Paul Mattsson

We need 'biggest movement since poll tax'

The Trades Union Congress (TUC), meeting this year in Manchester, needs to hear clearly from ordinary trade unionists and activists that the time has come to get off its knees and organise a fightback against the government's programme of cuts, writes Bill Mullins.

'Radical' cuts require serious action

Build national and local action: "Some people will be hit much harder by the VAT rise," cried the impassioned Tory councillor in Waltham Forest town hall, writes "Think of those who have to buy Bentleys," she continued!.

Waltham Forest's Labour council faces opposition

Coventry campaigners fight cuts of £140 million

Swansea trades council leads battle for services

Campaigners answer Bristol's 'Big Conversation'

Cuts news: Mental health services facing the axe

NSSN pledged to fight cuts

Troops out now!

Anti-war demonstration October 2009, photo Rob Emery

THE LEAKING of 75,000 secret US military documents on the Afghanistan war 'endangers lives', screamed the US Pentagon...

Afghanistan: US strategy in disarray

The concerted might of the strongest and largest military force in the world, that of the US, is failing to defeat the disparate and crudely equipped Taliban militias in one of the poorest countries of the world...

Oppose divisive academies policy

BLUNDERING EDUCATION minister, Michael Gove, is finding that the realities of life do not match his free market fantasies, writes Robin Pye.

Talks resume at British Airways

Negotiations between BA management and Unite cabin crew representatives resumed on 2 August and are continuing at the time of writing...

Angry workers strike over pay freeze and bosses' bonuses

Fighting fire service cuts

Witch-hunted Unison activist wins tribunal

Unite general secretary election

Tony Woodley, Socialist Party member Rob Williams and Len McCluskey (back) address a Visteon pensions lobby at Unite conference, photo Mike Gard

In an article in issue 632 of The Socialist, Kevin Parslow outlined reasons why Socialist Party members in the Unite trade union are supporting Len McCluskey in the general secretary (GS) election...

We won't be a lost generation, fight for jobs and education!

The statistics range wildly but one thing is obvious - young people's plans for the future are being dashed, writes Ben Robinson.

No to privatisation of our universities

For real jobs, not slave labour

Profiting from wrecking the environment

AN OIL trading company has been fined £840,000 after being convicted for concealing the dangerous nature of toxic waste which was subsequently dumped in the Ivory Coast in 2006, causing thousands of people to fall ill, writes John Sharpe.

Stop the Cardiff incinerator

Save Wanstead Flats

Daily Mail admits guilt over smearing Tamil hunger striker

THE DAILY Mail headline read: "Hunger Striker's £7 million Big Mac". This outrageous attack, printed on 9 October 2009, accused Subramanyam Parameswaran of eating a Big Mac while 'pretending' to be on...

Campaigning at Leeds Pride

Gay Pride demo 2007, photo Marc Vallee

Leeds Socialist Party members formed a very visible and vocal contingent on the Leeds LGBT Pride march around Leeds city centre on 1 August, handing out leaflets calling for a united fight against homophobia and transphobia as part of the wider struggle for socialism...

Book now for the summer camp!

The Socialist Party Summer Camp 2010, taking place from Friday 27 August to Monday 30 August, is the ideal opportunity for activists to come together to share ideas and experiences while enjoying a weekend of sports, singing and maybe even some sun, writes "I had a great weekend," said Stuart Thompson, who joined the Socialist Party last year. "The camp happened right after the Vestas campaign and after focusing our energy on the Isle of Wight it was really useful to swap ideas and experiences with comrades from around the country who had been involved in their own campaigns.".

Socialism 2010 - a weekend of discussion and debate

Love Parade catastrophe was entirely preventable

ON 24 July, 21 people died in the horrific stampede at the Love Parade festival in the German city of Duisburg...

Garment workers demand a living wage

Asda profiting from low pay

A DAMNING report was issued recently by the charity ActionAid on the "deplorable" pay and working conditions of Bangladeshi factory workers employed by British supermarket Asda - a subsidiary of US conglomerate Wal-Mart which makes £45 million a day in profit...

Tories put profits before patients

Rich just carry on getting richer

Fast news

The howlers' world and ours

Review: The Lacuna: THE LACUNA is written as the diary of a solitary young man, Harrison Shepherd, who ends up working as a cook for the Mexican artist Diego Rivera and then the exiled Leon Trotsky, one of the leaders of the 1917 Russian revolution, writes Hannah Sell.

How the banks rip us off