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What we think
Corbyn must lead a fight against the right and for an anti-austerity programme
Editorial of the Socialist: The Tory press is stoutly defending the ‘principled’ Labour right-wingers who resigned in protest from Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. Only by fully adopting a clear anti-cuts programme as the basis for a mass anti-austerity movement can Jeremy Corbyn put clear red water between his leadership and the Labour right.
NHS
Support the junior doctors’ strikes: Who’s the bigger threat to the NHS: junior doctors or Jeremy Hunt?
Junior doctors’ strike: picket photos and reports
Junior doctors were out on picket lines in force in their fight for doctors’ wellbeing and patient safety
Cuts, debt and exhaustion: The NHS deficit is rapidly worsening. Staff shortages in ambulance and community services mean more work falling on their shoulders.
Doctors battle burnout as 100 full-up GP surgeries apply to shut their doors
GPs want to provide safe, high-quality care for patients. The stress of feeling unable to give patients what they need – while fending off a barrage of increased paperwork and tasks not directly related to patient care – has forced 100 practices to apply to NHS England to close their surgeries to any new patients.
“Shattered but proud”, a day in the life of a student nurse
Early starts with late finishes might be the norm as a student nurse but they don’t get any easier.
Student nurses march to oppose bursary cut
Over 1,000 student nurses, NHS workers and members of the public marched through central London to protest the government’s plans to cut student nurses’ bursaries.
Socialist Party news and analysis
Bosses ‘earn’ year’s pay in under a week
Fat Cat Tuesday: By the first Tuesday of 2016, chief executives at the UK’s top ‘FTSE 100’ firms were sitting happily on earnings it will take the average full-time worker a year to make.
BBC planned live Labour resignation to damage Corbyn
The 1% and their cronies at the head of the mass media and BBC want to defend their privileged lifestyles. They have no answer to the anti-austerity anger which propelled Jeremy Corbyn to head of Labour. So they resort to sensationalism and distraction.
EU probes power plant for wrongdoing over switch from coal to biomass
A UK power plant is under European Union (EU) investigation – for daring to partially switch to a potentially lower-carbon fuel.
Band embarrasses Cameron over council housing; doctors mock right-wing media smears.
It’s one law for them…: A High Court judge has ruled against the Tories’ benefits cap. Strangely enough, it seems the “strongly worded” judgment has not brought an end to Tory attacks on the most vulnerable.
Housing crisis
Slums, speculation, sell-offs and sardines
Tory housing ‘u-turn’ is woefully inadequate: David Cameron finally seems to have acknowledged the dizzying abyss that free market housing policies have created.
For a mass programme of council house building: Cameron has announced plans to demolish around 100 decrepit tower block estates. He is subsiding private developers to build homes to buy on public land – no doubt mostly luxury flats.
Housing staff strike against cuts
On 6th Jan Sheffield Council housing workers took strike action
Cameron’s 10,000 new homes won’t hide the problem
David Cameron has announced that his government will directly commission and possibly build 10,000 new homes. It will go nowhere near countering the problems facing most of the population.
476,000 homes in England go unbuilt by speculators
New research shows a record 475,647 homes in England have planning permission but are yet to be built. Developers don’t want to actually build the houses we need. If they did, Britain’s overinflated housing market would crash and their profits would be hit.
Council cuts
A clear strategy to defeat the Tory cuts
Since 2010 local government spending has been slashed by 40%. Countless essential services have been cut to the bone.
Council uses reserves to stop cuts
The coalition of City Independents and Tories running Stoke-on-Trent council is staving off cuts
The only way councillors can stop the huge Tory cuts is to mobilise a mass campaign of the council workforce, local residents and anti-cuts campaigners.
Southampton people’s budget meeting
On Saturday 9 January Southampton Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition held a public meeting to support a council budget that meets the genuine needs of the people who live and work in the city.
Readers’ comments and reviews
Victor Jara’s revolutionary life, poetry and politics
Book review – Victor: An Unfinished Song: Before he died, in captivity, already injured, Victor Jara wrote a last poem, his unfinished song. When the workers of Chile and the world put an end to poverty, hunger and inequality, they will finish that song.
Letters to the Socialist’s editors. Letwin’s poll tax guinea pigs; poll tax agents provocateurs.
International socialist news and analysis
Sexual assaults in Cologne exploited by racist establishment and far right
The shocking attacks on scores of women in Cologne, where up to 1,000 North African or ‘Arab-looking’ men were said to be on the rampage, brought the inevitable baying from the far right and a backlash from the establishment media and politicians.
Tories back despots: The recent execution of 47 prisoners by Saudi Arabia’s rulers has been widely condemned as barbaric.
Honduras: Day of the endangered lawyer
On Friday 22 January, protests will take place outside Honduran embassies and consulates all over Europe over the increase in violent attacks and human rights violations directed at lawyers and democratic rights activists in Honduras.
Workplace news and analysis
West Dunbartonshire teachers strike
Members of the Scottish teachers’ union EIS took strike action at five secondary schools across West Dunbartonshire on 12 January, in defence of education services threatened by the Labour council’s “restructuring” of school management.
Spirits on Kent’s EDF Energy picket line were kept very high by playing cat and mouse with the employer. Bosses assigned managers to follow the pickets – presumably to act as the most obvious bugging devices in the history of espionage.
Short reports on some of the latest trade union struggles. Victimised postal union rep reinstated; fresh tube strikes announced; Lambeth libraries vote to walk out.
Socialist Party reports and campaigns
“We hope to inspire people to go out and spread their passion for the Socialist”
With mainstream media being controlled by the right-wing establishment and information being cherry picked to support capitalist interests, it is imperative, now more than ever, to support and actively promote a publication which is in the interests of the working class.
Report: Socialist Party national women’s meeting
On 9 January around 40 members from across the country travelled to London to attend the Socialist Party’s annual national women’s meeting.
Eleanor Marx: a life of struggle, solidarity and socialism
Celebrate the 160th anniversary of the birth of Eleanor Marx who played a pivotal role in the development of the trade union movement, the birth of the Labour Party and as a tireless fighter for working class people, especially women, all over the globe. Hosted by Lewisham Socialist Party, south London.
