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What we think
EU referendum: Vote OUT the Tories
The referendum on 23 June is not just about the EU but is also an opportunity to pass verdict on Cameron and his rotten government. An ‘out’ vote would strike a mortal blow at the government.
Socialist Party news and analysis
Junior doctors: back new strikes
Three 48-hour walkouts: Junior doctors have announced fresh stoppages. Tory health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s scandalous decision to impose a dangerous new contract on them has already backfired.
Trident: thousands to march – scrap all nukes!
Thousands are due to demand that Trident nuclear weapons be scrapped, taking to the streets on 27 February.
Butterfields tenants demand action against evictions at Labour estate agent awards
Tenants facing sell-off and eviction in east London demanded action from their Labour council at a nauseating Labour-organised estate agent awards ceremony on 20 February.
Children take over County Hall in protest at cuts
The Tories have admitted they have no evidence to suggest workers from other countries come to Britain to claim benefits.
Cameron, Cameron, meal snatcher
The government is closing a fund which helps remote primary schools feed children.
It’s one world for the super-rich, and another one for the rest of us. Bookies make millions from gambling addicts; bankster gamblers still unpunished.
People’s budgets
Tower Hamlets to take anti-cuts fight into the council chamber
Tower Hamlets Independent Group councillors will move an amendment to the east London borough’s cuts budget on 24 February.
Leeds sets up people’s budget campaign
Anti-cuts activists have established the Leeds People’s Budget Campaign to present a no-cuts amendment to next year’s council budget.
Leeds Labour ‘anti-austerity’ meeting: jam tomorrow
Leeds Labour Party’s “Fighting Austerity, Investment Not Cuts” meeting on 18 February seemed quite positive. Until the question of ‘people’s budgets’ came out.
Socialist Party feature
Industrially and politically, Britain’s largest public sector union is under siege from the Tories’ relentless austerity agenda. Meanwhile, Unison’s right-wing leadership and bureaucracy resort to dirty tricks to hold the struggle back.
International socialist news and analysis
Police violence must be condemned: Brutal policing caused a riot in the downtown district of Mong Kok on the first night of the Chinese New Year, 8 February. Socialists on the ground give an eyewitness report.
Short stories on workers’ struggles around the world. A Marxist view of Modi’s Hindutva in India; Irish election final push; Taiwan socialist conference.
Workplace news and analysis
Victory for striking EDF energy workers
Unite members at EDF Energy working in metering services have won major concessions in a long running dispute over pay and conditions.
Pensions strike by water workers in Warrington
United Utilities, a company with revenues of £1.7 billion and profits of £664 million in the last year, is attacking its workers’ pensions.
Fresh round of strikes against fresh round of cuts
Oxford County Council workers organised in Unite the Union took strike action against cuts on 16 February.
Stress, abuse and long hours for London bus drivers
Bus drivers in London are being made to suffer for a timing system that is not fit for purpose.
Workers unite to fight pay attack in Leicester
Over 300 workers for ‘food giant’ Samworth Brothers packed a meeting in Leicester on 12 February. Samworth Brothers is to take the minimum wage increase back from them by axing pay enhancements.
Short reports on some of the latest trade union struggles. National FE college strike; construction workers protest against employers breaking pay agreements; Independent newspaper to close.
Socialist history
Khrushchev: the Stalinist who denounced Stalin
60 years ago, at the 20th conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 February 1956, first secretary Nikita Khrushchev denounced the dictatorial crimes of Joseph Stalin who had died in 1953.
Socialist readers’ comments and reviews
One-woman tragedy’s fiery call for revolution
Theatre review: Iphigenia in Splott: Tremendous. That is the only way to describe Gary Owens’ one-woman play “Iphigenia in Splott”, directed by Rachel O’Riordan and starring Sophie Melville.
Do you have something to say? Letters to the Socialist’s editors. Heseltine’s Liverpool lies; nurse on class war; Tories versus law and order.
Socialist Party reports and campaigns
The community-led campaign against the closure of the A&E at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary has mushroomed into a massive people’s protest movement. Join the demonstration: 11.30am, 27 February, St Georges Square.
Momentum must “take the fight to the right”!
Lambeth Momentum’s leadership is on a rightward trajectory, but some younger members are still looking for a serious fightback.
Gateshead: reprieve for respite centre
Cabinet papers show that, following protests, Gateshead’s council is to back down over the closure of Grove House – a respite centre for children and a respite and day centre for adults, all with serious disabilities.
Save Derbyshire children’s centres
The Labour-controlled county council has announced that 32 of Derbyshire’s 51 children’s centres are to close this year, with up to 200 redundancies – their most vicious assault on workers yet in the £157 million cuts they’re making.
Wakefield: no fracking, no cuts
Wakefield’s council voted overwhelmingly to oppose fracking and call on central government to withdraw licences – after pressure from local activists.
Cumbria cuts – the grim reaper
The recent decision by Labour Cumbria county councillors to carry out £25 million cuts to vital public services, particularly social care, will result in more unnecessary deaths in Cumbria.
Campaign to save Pent Valley continues
Kent County Council has let slip any veil of democratic accountability to the people of Cheriton, Kent. Its education committee supported the proposal by the director of education, Patrick Leeson, to close Pent Valley School, despite huge public opposition.
Socialist Party Wales and North West conferences
Socialist Party regional conferences in the North West and Wales discuss last year’s tumultuous events and look ahead to the year to come.