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Socialist Party news and analysis
Strike action gets results – as shown by victories in Lewisham and at Kone engineering – no wonder the Tories want to virtually ban it!
Kone strikers in Gateshead celebrate their victory, photo Elaine Brunskill
As private landlords and super-rich cash in: One hundred million pounds of central London property was sold in the 24 hours after the Tory victory in the general election, as rich buyers breathed a sigh of relief that Labour’s timid mansion tax was dead and the tax loopholes for super-rich ‘non-doms’ would continue
Labour leadership ‘choice’ confirms need for new party
Bruised and Blattered – Fifa’s boss eventually resigns
Reclaim football from corrupting big business: Fifa president Sepp Blatter has finally succumbed to widespread pressure and resigned
Finance capital – taking Liborties
The ongoing trial of former UBS and Citigroup trader, Tom Hayes, has revealed the huge scale of the 2012 Libor rate fixing scandal perpetrated by the major banks
Setting the anti-war record straight
Filipino nurses fight Daily Mail smears
The Daily Mail has a habit of blanket scapegoating of the blameless. It was recently the turn of Filipino health workers. On 19 May, the Mail screeched: “NHS STILL hiring Filipino nurses” after the trial of Victorino Chua.
Socialist history
The lessons of Labour’s 1945 victory
This summer will see the 70th anniversary of the election of the 1945 Labour government, which carried out massive improvements for the working class
Heysel: How socialist councillors built bridges
Tony Mulhearn, former Liverpool city councillor from 1983-87 and past President of Liverpool Labour Party writes in reply to a Guardian article on the 1985 Heysel stadium disaster
Socialist Party youth and students
Budget Day: Smash Tory austerity!
Solidarity, struggle, hope, renewal and determination: None of these words would be readily brought to mind when contemplating our new Tory government’s back-to-the-1930’s Queen’s Speech
Queen’s Speech protesters in London, photo Paul Mattsson
Queen’s Speech protests: determination to fight back
London: “Tory scum, here we come”. This chant, which echoed through Westminster’s streets on 27 May, was a declaration of war
End violence against women: On 20 May, Jaffna in Sri Lanka came to a standstill, with shops being shut and black flags raised in memory of Vidya Sivaloganathan, the 17-year-old A-level student brutally gang raped and murdered
Socialist Party workplace news
Lewisham academy schools plans dropped
Teachers, school students and parents in Lewisham, south London, have won a great victory! They beat off plans to turn three schools into ‘academies’ which would have been a step towards privatisation
Striking teachers and students lobby a Prendergast governors’ meeting in Lewisham
Glasgow council concedes over pay grading
The all-out indefinite strike by Glasgow’s homelessness caseworkers for fair pay – now in its tenth week – has pushed an anti-union Labour council management to concede the principle that the caseworkers should be on pay grade six
Network Rail forced to make new offer
PCS members rally in Trafalgar Square
Bromley anti-privatisation action continues
Tube ballot: The RMT, Aslef, Tssa and Unite unions are to ballot London Underground workers who face a two year pay cut and imposed night working
International socialist news and analysis
Spain: left ‘popular unity’ lists win key victories
On 24 May, Spain held local elections throughout the state, as well as elections to 13 of its 17 regional parliaments. The results represent a further step in Spanish capitalism’s political crisis
Britain: end deportations – solidarity needed
Chile: 200,000 protest in Santiago
Hong Kong: refugee campaign victory
Readers’ comment
Mental health services gutted by Labour cuts
How the unemployed are targeted with sanctions
A Jobseeker’s Allowance claimant describes how she was subjected to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) draconian sanctions regime
When attending a rally in Westminster on 30 May to defend the Human Rights Act (HRA), Socialist Party members found ourselves in an unexpected and unprecedented situation. We were on a Liberal Democrat protest!