Archive for June 2008
3 June 2008
Editorial: Target 'ecological' taxes at the biggest polluters
Across Europe, farmers, fishermen, lorry drivers and others have been protesting against increased fuel costs...
3 June 2008
Heathrow protest: Demonstrating against a third airport runway
 |
Heathrow runway expansion protests, photo Marc Vallée |
Over 3,000 people marched from Hatton Cross to Sipson to demonstrate their opposition to a third runway at Heathrow airport, writes Neil Cafferky.
3 June 2008
Cosmetic measures against fuel poverty
THE GOVERNMENT'S plan, announced last week, to tackle fuel poverty doesn't amount to a hill of beans...
3 June 2008
Belfast Airport workers: The long battle for justice
The Socialist has carried regular articles about the battle being waged by three shop stewards, sacked from their security jobs at Belfast Airport...
3 June 2008
Come to the national shop stewards network conference
Time to fight back, time to organise: Millions of public-sector workers have had their pay frozen when real inflation is rocketing, writes Rob Williams, Unite convenor, Swansea Visteon plant, personal capacity.
3 June 2008
New Labour's failures: Don't just get angry, get active
 |
Grodon Brown meltdown. Cartoon on cover of Socialism Today, June 2008, by Suz |
LABOUR ARE hated - it's official! A YouGov poll last week put them at their most unpopular since opinion polling began in 1943. Then, Labour was soon to introduce the NHS and the welfare state. That Labour Party is gone forever, writes Tom Baldwin.
4 June 2008
On Saturday 21 June Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) has called a national demonstration against the racist British National Party...
4 June 2008
London Youth Against Racism activity
The London Youth against Racism in Europe (YRE) and International Socialist Resistance (ISR) protests against the election of a member of the British National Party to the London Assembly drew together politicised young people...
4 June 2008
National demo against racist BNP
National demo against racist BNP
Saturday 21 June 2008
Assemble: 12 noon, Tooley Street, London SE1
(behind Greater London Assembly building, near Tower Bridge)
Contact ISR on [email protected] or go to www.anticapitalism.org.uk
4 June 2008
School students are angry. Over the last six weeks, thousands have walked out in protest against the running down of the education system, writes Ben Robinson, ISR national co-ordinator.
4 June 2008
Berlin: 8,000 school students strike
Strikes in the public sector are currently shaking Berlin's political landscape. Thousands of striking school students have also been marching through the Berlin inner city...
4 June 2008
Nuclear power: An expensive and dangerous failure
An energy policy partly based on nuclear power, as the government is proposing, obviously raises deep concerns about safety. But it is also the sheer uneconomic nature of nuclear power that makes it an abject failure as a major energy source worldwide, writes Roy Farrar.
4 June 2008
The beautiful game, with beautiful profits for some
Now that the football season has drawn to a close, with the battle for the Premiership title having been fought between the usual clubs, John Reid, author of Reclaim the Game reviews the current state of football in England...
4 June 2008
THE CAMPAIGN to stop the deportation of AmDani Juna has won at least a temporary success...
4 June 2008
Nottingham: Student protests at arrests
OVER 500 students and staff demonstrated last week at Nottingham University over the arrest and threatened deportation of a member of staff, Hicham Yezza, writes Pete Mason.
4 June 2008
ABOUT 80 delegates and visitors at the Keep Our NHS Public (KONP) conference on 31 May discussed the consequences of this Labour government's "disguised and devious" privatisation policies in the NHS, writes Keith Dickinson, West London KONP delegate and Save Charing Cross Hospital Campaign..
4 June 2008
Union members reject pay insult
THOUSANDS OF NHS workers have rejected the government's below-inflation three-year pay offer...
4 June 2008
Nationalise Bradford & Bingley
THE CHIEF executive of Bradford and Bingley bank has stepped down amidst reports of massively reduced profits, due to an increasing number of accounts in arrears...
4 June 2008
Markets cannot end house building crisis
A LONDON newspaper recently announced in bold headlines: "Brown is brown bread" (for the benefit of non-Londoners, that means 'dead!'), writes Paul Kennedy.
4 June 2008
Lebanon - civil war or rule by sectarian landlords
AFTER THE last two weeks of street conflict between pro-government and opposition armed militias, workers in Lebanon are now facing two 'choices': either a sectarian civil war or 'civil peace' with a ruling 'coalition', writes Tamir Mahdi, Beirut.
4 June 2008
Israel: Olmert will go, but the political crisis will stick
IF IT was just another citizen, a criminal investigation would be conducted under conditions of arrest, writes Shahar Ben-Khorin, (CWI, Israel).
4 June 2008
 |
Freidrich Engels |
The ideas of the Socialist Party, based on scientific socialism, are identified with Karl Marx and 'Marxism', but Friedrich Engels deserves to be bracketed alongside the great 'philosopher of the millennium'. Peter Taaffe reveiws Engels: A Revolutionary Life, by John Green. (Artery Publications, London 2008)
4 June 2008
National Shop Stewards Network second conference
National Shop Stewards Network second conference
Saturday 28 June, 11.30am-4.30pm
South Camden Community School, Charrington Street, London NW1.
Speakers include Bob Crow, RMT, Mark Serwotka, PCS and Brian Caton, POA, plus shop stewards from disputes around the country.
£5 per delegate. Send to: NSSN, PO Box 58262, London N1 1ET. Email [email protected] Or see: www.shopstewards.net
11 June 2008
National Shop Stewards Network second conference
National Shop Stewards Network second conference
Saturday 28 June, 11.30am-4.30pm
South Camden Community School, Charrington Street, London NW1.
Speakers include Bob Crow, RMT, Mark Serwotka, PCS and Brian Caton, POA, plus shop stewards from disputes around the country.
£5 per delegate. Send to: NSSN, PO Box 58262, London N1 1ET.
Ring 020 8522 1156 email: [email protected]
See: www.shopstewards.net
11 June 2008
AFTER THE final state primaries, Barack Obama has effectively secured the Democratic nomination for the presidential election in November. The fact that the contest was between an African-American and a woman symbolises deep social changes in the US...
11 June 2008
Oil price shock - the chaos of capitalism
Years of frenzied speculation on commodity markets: We have been hit by a tsunami of energy price rises. A flood of speculative activity in oil markets has produced a huge bubble that will inevitably collapse in coming months. Lynn Walsh investigates.
11 June 2008
 |
On the 'Save the NHS' march, 3 November 2007, photo Paul Mattsson |
11 June 2008
Doctors to the left of New Labour: I have a pain - literally - in my big toe and naturally had recourse to the doctor. On entering the doctor's surgery I found there was not another soul waiting to be seen. "My lucky day," I thought, expecting to see my doctor very quickly. How wrong, writes Peter Taaffe.
11 June 2008
Stirring rally backs Tommy Sheridan
 |
Tommy Sheridan in 2007 |
11 June 2008
Underfunding youth facilities: It makes no sense!
Fifteen teenagers have been murdered in London in 2008, twelve of them stabbed to death. The question of violence dominates the mainstream media, and all of the main political parties have been clambering to prove they're 'the toughest on crime'...
11 June 2008
 |
Protest against the BNP after the Greater London Assembly elections, photo Sarah Mayo |
11 June 2008
Come to the Campaign for a New Workers' Party Conference
At the rally for the national TUC lobby of Parliament on public-sector pay on 9 June, the loudest applause was given to those general secretaries who called on unions to coordinate industrial action on pay across the public sector to increase our pressure on the New Labour government, writes Katrine Williams, PCS DWP Wales secretary, personal capacity.
11 June 2008
New Labour's parallel universe
In April 1946 George Orwell, author of the anti-Stalinist tribute to the Spanish working class, Homage to Catalonia, and Animal Farm, as well as the profoundly pessimistic 1984, wrote an essay called Politics and the English Language, writes Tony Mulhearn.
11 June 2008
Immortal Technique at the Coronet, London 4 June 2008
Gig review: Today's music is often accused of lacking the integrity, provocative thought and political anger of 'the good old days', with hip-hop being first in the firing line, writes Michael Wrack.
11 June 2008
A REPORT from the public accounts committee says that Britain's biggest bank, HSBC, and its investors, have made around £100 million from NHS hospitals...
11 June 2008
Usdaw needs a fighting leadership
Socialist Party member Robbie Segal is standing for general secretary of the shop and distribution workers' union USDAW. The Socialist recently interviewed her...
11 June 2008
Organise to fight the public-sector pay robbery
Since New Labour came to power in 1997 the wealth of the richest 1,000 people in Britain has quadrupled to £412 billion. Last month it was reported that bankers and financiers had taken a record £12.6 billion in bonuses alone so far this year...
11 June 2008
Unison witch-hunt hits Northern Ireland
THE WITCH-HUNT of members of the Socialist Party in Unison has now extended to Northern Ireland. Pat Lawlor, Unison convenor for nursing in the Royal Victoria Hospital Belfast, who has continually campaigned for Unison members in opposition to low pay, cuts in services and privatisation, is currently under 'investigation' by the union's national executive, writes Eileen Keenan, Northern Ireland Unison member in education, personal capacity.
11 June 2008
Street cleaners and park workers in the London Borough of Waltham Forest have had their jobs contracted out to Kier, a large company which includes privatised services amongst its portfolio, writes Kevin Parslow.
11 June 2008
Drivers at Brighton and Hove Buses which is run by Go Ahead, have voted to take six days of strike action on consecutive Mondays beginning on 20 June. This is after the drivers, organised in the Unite union, rejected pay offers by management, writes Phil Clarke, Brighton Socialist Party.
11 June 2008
WALTHAM FOREST libraries Unison steward and Socialist Party member Nancy Taaffe spoke at a rally against cuts to library services and attacks on library workers' terms and conditions...
11 June 2008
Protest at Bush: US PRESIDENT George Bush is visiting the UK on Sunday 15 June. The police have banned a protest march organised by the Stop the War Coalition from Parliament Square, London to Downing Street, where Gordon Brown is 'entertaining' Bush.
11 June 2008
Obama declares victory, and shifts to the right
OBAMA'S VICTORY speech at the Xcel Center in St Paul, Minnesota, wouldn't start until well after 8pm but by 5pm a youthful, festive line of 15,000 already snaked through the downtown streets, writes Ty Moore, Socialist Alternative, USA.
11 June 2008
Sudan's poor paying the price for oil
THE BATTLE for control of oil resources is threatening the very future of Sudan. Tens of thousands have been forced out of their homes and the town of Abyei has been destroyed in fighting between the Northern government's Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), writes Naomi Byron.
11 June 2008
Permanent occupation: AHEAD OF November's presidential election, the Bush administration is attempting to establish 50 permanent US armed bases in Iraq...
11 June 2008
"Anti-terror" laws are no solution
THE GOVERNMENT'S proposal to increase the period that "terrorism suspects" can be detained without charge from 28 days to 42, comes before parliament as we go to press, writes Roger Shrives.
11 June 2008
Fujitsu workers strike to save jobs
Fujitsu workers took part in 12 hours of solid strike action at the company's factory in Birmingham on 9 June. The workers were protesting against the planned offshoring of jobs to the US which will result in up to 150 of the 700 workers being sacked, writes Ted Smith.
14 June 2008
Ireland poll rejects the Lisbon Treaty
In a higher than normal turnout for a referendum, 53.1%, the Lisbon Treaty (the renamed EU Constitution), was clearly rejected on Thursday by 53.4% to 46.6%. As the 'no' side trailed in every opinion poll until one poll last week, this is a major shock for the political and business establishment in Ireland.
15 June 2008
Campaign for a new workers' party
TONY BLAIR and his coterie live in a fantasy world. Blair is now one of the most hated prime ministers in history, yet his closest advisers have drawn up a plan for him to depart after May 2007, saying that "he needs to go with the crowds wanting more." Hannah Sell writes.
17 June 2008
Campaign for a new workers' party
Conference
Sunday 29 June 11am - 5pm
South Camden Community School, Charrington Street, London NW1
Nearest stations - Kings Cross & St Pancras, Euston, Mornington Crescent
Speakers confirmed so far include:
Bob Crow, RMT general secretary
Dave Nellist, Campaign for a New Workers' Party national chair
John McInally, PCS vice president
Simeon Andrews, Labour Representation Committee secretary
Rob Hoveman, Respect co-ordinating committee
Dave Church, Walsall Democratic Labour Party
Mike Davies, Alliance for Green Socialism chair
17 June 2008
Unite and fight against racism
 |
Love Music Hate Racism 2007, photo Paul Mattsson |
17 June 2008
Lisbon Treaty 'No' vote delivers major shock for political and big business Establishment
 |
Socialist Party No vote campaign, photo Paul Mattsson |
This is a major shock for the political and business Establishment in Ireland.
Kevin McLoughlin, Socialist Party (CWI Ireland), writes from Dublin.
17 June 2008
NHS: Polyclinics - Stop this backdoor privatisation
Feature: IN MANY parts of the country, new 'polyclinics' are opening up, replacing established GPs' surgeries. JO SECHER warns that the government's new polyclinics are not "community based health care", and they are certainly not "GP-led surgeries".
17 June 2008
PFI - a very bad deal for the NHS
IF YOUR local shop had an offer, "one for the price of three", they would not get much trade. Yet that's the kind of deal offered to health trusts by Private Finance Initiative (PFI) consortia on building hospitals...
17 June 2008
 |
Protest against George W Bush visit to Britain, photo Paul Mattsson |
17 June 2008
Unison conference: Angry delegates attack leaders
 |
Unison conference 2008 anti-witchhunt protest, photo Paul Mattsson |
17 June 2008
David Davis - sanity or carving a position?
TORY SHADOW Home Secretary David Davis has stood down to fight a by-election in opposition to the government's narrow victory on the issue of 42 days detention without charge for 'terrorist' suspects, writes Ken Douglas.
17 June 2008
No! to racism: Yes! to decent jobs, homes and public services
 |
At a previous 'Love Music Hate Racism' concert, photo Paul Mattsson |
- Unite and fight against low pay and cuts in jobs and services.
- No to the far-right, racist BNP.
- End cheap labour. For a minimum wage of £8 an hour. No exemptions.
- A massive public spending programme to create more houses, schools, hospitals and all the facilities we need. End privatisation.
- Campaign to form a new mass party of the working class.
18 June 2008
Victory against bosses at Keele
Staff at Keele University have won a modest victory at a time when working conditions are being attacked right across the higher education sector. It shows that even when management are fighting from a position of strength, they can be forced to retreat...
18 June 2008
Stop New Labour's divisive school academy plans
 |
Teachers strike on 24 April 2008, photo Paul Mattsson |
18 June 2008
Protest at BNP 'hate festival'
THE FAR right racist British National Party (BNP) are planning a 'festival of hate' (the Red White and Blue festival) on 16 August in Denby near the Notts/Derbyshire border, writes By Nottingham and Derby anti-BNP campaigners.
18 June 2008
AS THE Socialist 536 reported, AmDani Juma won a temporary success in his struggle against deportation to strife-torn Burundi when his application for a judicial review was accepted. This was due to a huge campaign of pressure on the Home Office...
18 June 2008
Greater Manchester - save your post office
THIS SEPTEMBER, 67 post offices in different parts of Greater Manchester face closure. The government wants to shut 2,500 around the country. Many local post offices have started their own petitions.
18 June 2008
Leeds: Stop Beeston post office closures
The Leeds Socialist Party branch has been campaigning against the closure of three post offices in Beeston. We have done several stalls in the area and had a good response...
18 June 2008
National Shop Stewards Network Conference
Standing up for our rights!: The prospects facing the majority of young workers today can only be described as dire. Many young people can only dream of earning a decent wage and carving out a secure future for themselves, writes Tracy Edwards, Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), young members' organiser.
18 June 2008
Adrian O'Malley is the chair of Unison's Wakefield and Pontefract Hospitals branch and newly elected to Unison's health service group executive (SGE) for Yorkshire and Humberside...
18 June 2008
CWU's link with Labour hotly debated
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) conference met from 8-13 June, under the threat of huge attacks on its industries and its members, writes Dave Griffiths.
18 June 2008
PCS member Eddie Fleming's Employment Tribunal is taking place on 25 June, and the union is organising a lobby in his support. Eddie, the chair of the PCS union branch at the Child Support Agency (CSA), was sacked for his union activities on trumped up charges...
18 June 2008
London protest over Rajapaksa's dismal human rights record
ON 10 June, Tamils in London gathered in front of the Commonwealth Office to protest against Sri Lanka's president Mahinda Rajapaksa's visit and against the UK prime minister Gordon Brown.
18 June 2008
Stop big business polluting our environment
Beckton biofuels power station: THE CAMPAIGN against a planned bio-fuel power station in east London is gaining momentum, bringing together residents and environmental activists against health risks to local people, climate change and land misuse, writes Manny Thain.
18 June 2008
According to press reports, the strike by tanker drivers at multinational giant Shell's depots has concluded with a deal. It was 100% solid at the Shell Haven site in Coryton, Essex. Drivers were angry about their treatment from Shell and the contractor Hoyer. A driver on the picket line, Gary, spoke to The Socialist.
25 June 2008
Unison members in local government have voted by 55% to 45% for a programme of sustained strike action against a derisory 2.45% pay offer.
25 June 2008
Editorial: Summer of discontent?
Following the pay rise victory of Shell tanker drivers, Unison council workers have voted for strike action over pay; starting with two days in July. This vote will be widely welcomed by workers throughout the public sector...
25 June 2008
PCS union sends letter of solidarity to Unison
As Unison started its annual conference, ahead of the council workers' vote to strike over pay, Mark Serwotka (general secretary of the PCS union) sent the following letter of support and solidarity to Unison's general secretary Dave Prentis, calling for united industrial action.
25 June 2008
Campaign for a new workers' party: Conference - Sunday 29 June, 11am - 5pm
South Camden Community School, Charrington Street, London NW1
Speakers include:
Bob Crow, RMT general secretary
25 June 2008
Unison conference 2008: Fighting to reclaim the union for its members
 |
Glenn Kelly at Unison conference 2008 calls for review of Labour link, photo Paul Mattsson |
25 June 2008
Unison Service Group Executives - socialists elected
AnalysisUNISON MEMBERS have just elected their service group leaderships (SGEs), the bodies that oversee pay and conditions of service negotiations in service groups including local government, health, higher education and energy.
25 June 2008
National Shop Stewards Network Conference
Saturday 28 June, 11.30am-4.30pm
South Camden Community School, Charrington Street, London NW1.
Speakers include
Bob Crow RMT,
Janice Godrich, PCS,
Brian Caton POA.
25 June 2008
Fighting, democratic unions not witch hunts
"Democracy not bureaucracy": Throughout Unison's 2008 conference there were two main talking points. One was the witch hunt taking place against Unison activists, including myself and three other Socialist Party members. The other was motion 63, entitled 'New Labour, what do we get for our money', writes Onay Kasab, Greenwich Unison (personal capacity)
25 June 2008
Zimbabwe: Mugabe's militias crush his political opponents
WITH ONLY days remaining before Zimbabwe's re-run presidential election, Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition candidate of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has announced he is pulling out of the contest, citing the use of widespread violence against his supporters by Zanu-PF militias allied to the incumbent president, Robert Mugabe. Dave Carr writes.
25 June 2008
Afghanistan - paying the price of western occupation
"THEY HAVE paid the ultimate price, but achieved something of lasting value" is what prime minister Gordon Brown said about the recent nine deaths of armed forces personnel in Afghanistan, writes Jim Thompson.
25 June 2008
Cut throat competition threatens NHS
I WAS sorry to read in The Socialist 537 that Peter Taaffe has a pain in his big toe. His difficulty in getting to see his GP is all too common. Government imposed targets mean frustrating phone calls to book appointments, writes Jon Dale.
25 June 2008
"With polyclinics you're just a number"
"WHAT PEOPLE want is a good doctor who knows their history. If you get polyclinics, you'll just be a number." Many similar comments were made during a public meeting in the Nottinghamshire mining village of Warsop...
25 June 2008
Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS: EMPLOYEES OF Tees, Esk & Wear Valleys NHS trust were shocked to find out that services for patients with long-term mental health problems will be put out to private tender and that they will be transferred to a private contractor...
25 June 2008
'Old' Labour - born out of workers' struggles
To most people today, the phrase 'Labour politician' brings to mind a sleek well-paid career politician. But that was not the way the Labour Party started out. For at least the first half of its life the Labour Party was built and maintained by dedicated...
25 June 2008
Workers' battles win results: Tankers drivers' success upsets bosses
THE OIL tanker drivers' strike has ended. The drivers struck over the failure of multinational giant Shell and the contractors Hoyer, and Suckling Transport to pay them a decent pay rise, after years of attacks...
25 June 2008
Brighton bus drivers match inflation
BUS DRIVERS working for Brighton & Hove Bus Company have won an important deal in their pay dispute with the Go Ahead-owned business. T&G Unite members have accepted an improved pay offer from management by 410 votes to 73, writes Peter Knight.
25 June 2008
Teachers fight academy plans in Bolton
"What do Airtours know about running a school?": TEACHERS AT Withins school in Bolton took a second day of strike action on 18 June, over issues arising from their employers' plan to turn it into an 'academy' school, writes Hugh Caffrey.
25 June 2008
Summit fails to halt runaway oil prices
GORDON BROWN can add last week's Jeddah oil summit to his ever-growing list of policy failures. The Saudi Arabia-held conference was supposed to see Britain's hapless prime minister persuade the oil producing OPEC countries to significantly increase...
25 June 2008
BRITISH CAPITALISM produces far fewer manufactured goods than in the past, but in one sphere it's a world leader. Last year, it was the world's largest exporter of arms...
25 June 2008
Thousands show their hatred for racism
On Saturday 21 June several thousand people marched against the far-right, racist British National Party (BNP) on the Love Music Hate Racism demonstration, writes Kat Jayawant and Sarah Sachs-Eldridge.
25 June 2008
Student unions can be pushed into action
Socialist Students: On Wednesday 18 June, Southampton University Students Union (SUSU) picketed the University of Southampton senate meeting...
25 June 2008
Review: False 'gods' of a failing system
Feature: According to the ancient Greeks: "Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad." Peter Taaffe reviews 'The Gods That Failed: How Blind Faith in Markets Has Cost Us Our Future', drawing out the value and limitations of a devastating critique of 'modern' capitalism.
25 June 2008
RMT's Bob Crow attacks the 'three Tory parties': IN THE debate on public ownership at the RMT rail union annual general meeting (AGM), general secretary Bob Crow said: "The reality is that we have three Tory parties in Britain now - the Tory party, the Labour party and the LibDems, writes Dave Reid.
25 June 2008
Socialist Party member Robbie Segal is standing for election as general secretary of the shop and distribution workers' union, USDAW. For information about her campaign, please see: www.robbiesegal.org...
25 June 2008
Prices up, Wages down...Summer of action needed!
The cost of bread and meat up 9% in twelve months! Milk, cheese and eggs up by almost 20% and heating oil leaping by a staggering 84%! Jump in your car and head for the pumps and it's the same story, as petrol hits 112p a litre, writes Robin Clapp.
1 July 2008
We are posting one or two of the speeches at the CNWP debate 'How can we fight for a working class political voice?' A video of al the opening speeches will be posted to the CNWP website www.cnwp.org.uk, writes Bob Crow, RMT general secretary.
LINKS
Socialism Today, monthly magazine of the Socialist Party
Publishing house of the Socialist Party. Click through to get your copy of From Militant to the Socialist Party, Lessons of October, ebooks and more!
Left Books website
CONTACT US
Phone our national office on 020 8988 8777
Email: [email protected]
Locate your nearest Socialist Party branch Text your name and postcode to 07761 818 206
Regional Socialist Party organisers:
Eastern: 079 8202 1969
East Mids: 077 3797 8057
London: 075 4018 9052
North East: 078 4114 4890
North West 079 5437 6096
South West: 077 5979 6478
Southern: 078 3368 1910
Wales: 079 3539 1947
West Mids: 024 7655 5620
Yorkshire: 078 0983 9793
ABOUT US
MEMBER RESOURCES
MARXISM
Communist
Manifesto by Marx and Engels
Communism, grotesque caricature: see Soviet Union. See also What About Russia?
How would a socialist economy work?
Lenin:
On Marxism
Terrorism: Marxism Opposes Terrorism
BOOKS & VIDEOS
Click here for our video pages
Click here for our online publications
Click here to go to Left Books (opens in new window) for new and secondhand books
LATEST POSTS
 |
9 May Post-election meetings
ARCHIVE
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
Platform setting: =
V5