The Socialist 24 January 2018

Socialist planning needed to end privatisation scam

Turn Carillion crisis into movement against privatisation and capitalism

Welsh NHS crisis - we cannot go on like this

£2m to remove Grenfell-type cladding: residents to get bill

Private profit out of our NHS

Leeds playing fields rescued from Blairites

May's "war on plastic" still puts profits before the planet

News in brief

Vietnam War: 50 years since the Tet Offensive

Lecturers vote for strikes against pension cuts

PCS executive agrees next steps in pay campaign

Brum care workers protest council attacks

Amy Murphy Usdaw campaign meeting

Ballots against Bromley privatisers

Ferrybridge: Workers down tools over unpaid wages

Punishment of Tamimi family awakens wave of international solidarity

Defend Louise Harrison - save Yorkshire women's services!

Victory against government's war on eastern European homeless

Women rally defiantly

Gentrification scourge hits Kent

Kirklees council opens consultation of library services

Southampton: Pay rise for uni boss, job losses for lecturers

Red Mary - a Force of Nature

Obituary: Maureen Mulhearn 1945-2018

Carillion and the construction industry

Carillion crisis exposes PFI chaos

Universal credit: set up to fail

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News in brief

Segregated playground

Children were divided into rich and poor playgrounds during lunchtime at an 'academy' primary school in the West Midlands.

Wednesbury Oak Academy in Tipton asked parents for £6 donations to fund new play equipment. The school then denied access to children whose parents hadn't paid.

After exposure by the Mirror, the school cancelled the policy. But this Ryanair approach to schooling, with state education dismembered into saleable packages, is in the profit-driven DNA of academies.

Oil spoils

Workers decommissioning a BP oil rig got just £2.70 an hour (Click to enlarge)

Bosses can legally pay less than the minimum wage to workers doing dangerous jobs out in the North Sea.

Transport and maritime union RMT has found the latest government guidance on rates only extends 12 miles into British waters.

It seems staff decommissioning a BP oil rig received just $45 for a 12-hour shift. That's about £2.70 an hour, working all day with heavy and flammable materials, over a freezing cold sea.

BP recorded profits of $1.4 billion in just the first three months of last year.

Benefit cut beaten

Campaigners have beaten a government attack on disability benefits. 150,000 people will now receive more of the support they need.

The Tories had tried to change the rules around the 'personal independence payment' (PIP) to exclude some mental illness sufferers. PIP is itself an attack, replacing the superior 'disability living allowance' benefit.

After a successful legal challenge, the government considered appealing and emergency legislation to retain the brutal cut. But a statement on 19 January conceded defeat.

The climbdown follows persistent campaigning by disabled rights activists including the Socialist Party.

In this issue

What we think

Turn Carillion crisis into movement against privatisation and capitalism