25 articles from the Socialist, issue 435
13 April 2006
Socialist Party campaigns
Job cuts soar: MORE THAN 7,000 hospital job cuts have been announced in the last few weeks. And this devastating fact is not the end of the story. Job cuts could go as high as 24,000, as more hospitals and trusts go into deficit…
PARENTS, PUPILS and teaching staff in Cardiff are outraged at the city council’s plans to close 17 secondary, primary, infant and nursery schools across the city…
DESPITE THE spin from Downing Street and the White House, an internal report from the US embassy and military command in Baghdad shows that Iraq’s ‘political, economic and security situation’ in six of the country’s 18 provinces is "serious" and "critical" in one…
Bush eying regime change in Iran
ACCORDING TO US journalist Seymour Hersh the Pentagon is accelerating military plans to attack Iranian nuclear facilities with ‘bunker-busting’ bombs, including the use of ‘tactical nuclear weapons’…
MILLIONS OF the poorest people in Britain, particularly pensioners and benefit recipients are officially in fuel poverty, paying more than a tenth of their income on gas and electricity…
Socialist Party election campaign
Huddersfield – the bandwagon is rolling!
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The Save Huddersfield NHS campaign is dominating the local elections in Huddersfield. The local paper has featured the three candidates and in its editorial called the NHS the most important issue of the elections, writes Mike Forster, Huddersfield.
"Standing up for working people"
Sheffield: Canvassing in Sheff-ield on Sunday, Colin is stopped by a man in a black car. “What’s a socialist, in one sentence?”, the man asks. “Someone who stands up for working people”, Colin replies. The man nods, writes Jeremy Short, Sheffield.
Election campaigns boost sales of the socialist
With local elections getting nearer, sales of the socialist are increasing as more people, sick of cuts, closures and privatisation, want to read about the campaigns and ideas of the Socialist Party, writes Bob Severn, the socialist, national sales organiser.
Fighting fund target smashed – again!
Congratulations to all the branches and members who helped raise a huge £25,768 for the Socialist Party fighting fund in the first quarter of 2006. This is 117% of our target – thanks to all our supporters who donated, writes Naomi Byron, National finance department.
MANY PEOPLE will have their first contact with the Socialist Party during our current local election campaigns. Some will, as well as signing petitions against council cuts, privatisation and giving campaign donations, buy a copy…
Socialist Party review
1926 General Strike – Workers taste power by Peter Taaffe
New Socialist Party book: This May sees the eightieth anniversary of the 1926 General Strike in Britain – the most important and earth-shattering moment in the history of the British working class…
International socialist news and analysis
Mass struggle in France forces government retreat
JUST OVER a week after signing into law the new employment contract which allows bosses to sack workers under 26 years of age without warning or giving a reason in the first two years, France’s president Jacques Chirac – faced with mass opposition, led by workers and young people – abandoned it, writes Robert Bechert, CWI, writing from France.
Build for 1 May general strike in the USA
US immigrant workers demand legal rights: “WE ARE not criminals, we are workers,” read one placard in Seattle as thousands of immigrant workers and their supporters marched to demand that the country’s eleven million undocumented immigrant workers be legalised…
Italian opposition scrapes home but workers must stop the return of Berlusconi
Italian general election: “IF THAT clown comes back to power, it will be a disgrace and Italy won’t be worth living in!” This was the response of a former teacher and mother of two young children in Rome on election night…
Kazakhstan Riot police repelled by shanty town residents
AT 10.30am on 5 April, a battalion of police, backed up by ‘rapid response’ riot police, the KNB (former KGB) agents, the City Procurer, firefighters and bailiffs, turned up at the Shanyrak district of Alma-Ata city, to raze to the ground the homes of landless residents, writes Socialist Resistance (CWI) reporters, Alma-Ata.
Socialist Party workplace news
Stop New Labour’s old Tory policies
NUT conference: EVERY CHILD should have the right to a good education at their local school. But too many parents fear that their children may not be getting the opportunities they deserve. Now New Labour’s Education Bill is going to make things even worse, writes Martin Powell-Davies, secretary Lewisham National Union of Teachers.
AROUND 100 railworkers attended the last meeting organised by the rail trade unions to discuss the imminent pensions crisis in the industry, writes an Aslef member.
SOCIALIST PARTY member Len Hockey is standing in the election for the health service group executive (SGE) of UNISON…
Organise to defend jobs at Visteon
LAST SEPTEMBER, the bosses of Visteon UK (Ford’s components business) informed the trade unions that the global corporation had ‘dealt’ with the biggest loss-maker, the USA, with the transfer of some 23 plants back under the control of Ford…
New deal in the offing in local government?
LOCAL GOVERNMENT workers have been fighting, and striking against, plans by their employers and the government to attack their pension plans, writes Bill Mullins.
