The Socialist 20 February 2019

Tories out, Blairites out

Nationalise Airbus and other manufacturing plants to save jobs now!

NHS crisis deepens: Workers' and community action can save our health service

What we heard

What we saw

"There's no planet B": Thousands of youth strike against climate change - we need socialist change!

Youth strike for the climate reports: "There's no planet B"

TV: Les Misérables - Hugo's novel and this adaptation both offer a message of hope

The Socialist Inbox

Eight Blairites split - Now kick out the rest

PCS Left Unity must unite on pay and elections

Universal Credit staff ballot for action

Annoyed?! I'm annoyed to be on poverty wages

Nationalise to save jobs at Honda!

Birmingham bin strike against 'blacklisting'

Deliveroo riders strike against exploitative pay and conditions

Leicester college pay strike goes on

Cardiff Uni: urgent action needed to stop job cuts

Hackney: Unite fights racism and victimisation

Harrowing accounts of austerity at Unison women's conference

Unite GLL pay campaign

Spanish state: social polarisation and budget defeat force snap election

Unite union London council workers back Enfield Labour no-cuts call

Leeds TUC presents a no-cuts alternative budget

Socialist Students conference shows potential for fighting leadership

London housing campaigners disrupt auction

Birmingham Uni: Standing up to racism is not harassment!

Leicester Socialists stand against Blairite mayor

Lincoln students back UCU ballot

Leicestershire needs NHS beds

Claimants and union slam Universal Credit

Energy retail firm collapse hits Tyneside

New recession fear stalks the world economy

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Link to this page: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/1030/28727

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The Socialist Inbox

The Socialist inbox: letters to the editors (Click to enlarge)

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Solidarity with Wavertree Labour Party

Merseyside Pensioners Association (MPA) condemns Labour deputy leader Tom Watson's slanderous attack on Wavertree Labour Party.

Watson uses the witch-hunting methods of McCarthyism - 'The practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence'.

Speaking on the Andrew Marr show he invoked the vile attacks on Ms Berger by fascist thugs (who were jailed for their criminal activities), as he did the murder of Jo Cox by a far-right fanatic and, by implication, linked these monstrosities to the stance of Wavertree party members, frequently interspersing the word "bullying" or "bullied".

Watson failed to mention that Wavertree members condemned these racist attacks and had frequently demonstrated against them.

We stand four-square in solidarity with the Wavertree members and support them in their total rejection of Watson's allegations.

This MPA defends the fundamental right of rank and file members to hold their elected representatives to account either at council or parliamentary level. This is a fundamental democratic right which Mr Watson and his allies are attempting to stifle.

The real crime, in his eyes, is that, unlike Mr Watson, Wavertree Labour Party is campaigning for the defeat of the Tories and for the election of a Corbyn-led government.

Tony Mulhearn, MPA Media Officer

Villainous Churchill

Hated, anti-worker capitalist politician Winston Churchill (Click to enlarge)

"Tonypandy? Villain", is how Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell responded when asked if Winston Churchill was a hero or villain.

Churchill and his legacy has made headlines recently with some, mainly Tory MPs like Jeremy Hunt, trotting out the usual 'war hero' and 'greatest Briton' nonsense. But McDonnell is right and most workers over the years agreed.

Especially in places like south Wales, where Churchill sent in troops against striking workers. In Tonypandy in the Rhondda during a miners' strike in 1910, troops killed one miner and injured about 580 people.

Police blocking a street during the Tonypandy miners' strike of 1910-1911 (Click to enlarge)

During a railway workers' strike in Llanelli in 1911 troops charged to clear a picket line for a passenger train but strikers were able to immobilise it by raking out the fire. The confrontation that followed culminated in soldiers opening fire. Two men were killed including 19-year-old Leonard Worsell, who had nothing to do with the strike.

My grandfather tells me that Churchill - even during the war - would be booed when he appeared on newsreels in the cinema. And he was booed in person when he visited Cardiff in 1950. And not just Cardiff, the same story is repeated in east London and in industrial towns and cities in Scotland and the north of England where Churchill placed battleships on the Mersey and Tyne during the 1926 general strike.

Add to this the Bengal famine in 1943, the 'Siege of Sidney Street', his role during the Boer War, his views on race... The list goes on. Villain is putting it quite mildly actually!