20 articles from the Socialist, issue 444

15 June 2006

NHS protesters on the march

Unison – RCN Lobby of Parliament in 2006, photo Paul Mattsson

Birmingham Socialist Party’s SEAN MCCAULEY explains what is happening in Birmingham where preparations are underway for a West Midlands regional demonstration on 15 July, writes THE NHS is under attack. Blair and New Labour are forcing hospitals across the country to make over £800 million of cuts to their budgets. But a fightback is starting – last weekend 4,000 people marched in Stroud. NHS: Rebellion over hospital cuts

Feature: REBELLION IS growing in Gloucestershire against vicious New Labour NHS cuts. A week after a 6,000 protest in the Forest of Dean, one in 25 of the population of Stroud poured out onto the streets as 4,000 people voiced their anger…

Victory for ‘save our school’ campaign

“IF THIS school had been in an affluent area of Kirklees, we wouldn’t have faced closure,” commented Jeanette Peel, teacher and NUT member at a rally to save RM Grylls Middle School on the outskirts of Huddersfield from the axe, writes Mike Forster, Kirklees UNISON.

Anger mounting at bungled police raid

ANGER IS still mounting at the police dawn raid in Forest Gate. Muslim organisations have picketed New Scotland Yard to protest at the police shooting of postal worker Abdul Kahir and his arrest, along with his brother, as part, writes Simon Carter.

Tax credit system: Millions driven into debt

THE FIASCO of the tax credit system has hit the headlines again. Stark figures show that millions of low-paid workers are being driven into debt by a system set up to overcome poverty. A London Citizen’s Advice Bureau (CAB) worker writes.

Socialist question time

LEWISHAM SOCIALIST Party held a very successful “Question Time” meeting on 8 June in Telegraph Hill ward, with one of the Socialist Party (SP) councillors, Ian Page, taking over the David Dimbleby role…

World Cup: Profits and prostitution

I CAN hardly call myself the greatest football fan alive. However, I used to be football crazy when I was little and I still remember the excitement of the 1982 World Cup in Madrid; my first “conscious” world football, writes Tanja Niemeier (recently returned from Germany).

1926 general strike debate

THE MORNING Star (12 June) printed a review by Graham Stevenson of Socialist Party general secretary Peter Taaffe’s book on the 1926 general strike. We print the review and a reply by Peter Taaffe printed on the 15 June.

“PETER TAAFFE has competently retold standard, secondary accounts of the 1926 general strike. Given that the author is a veteran leader of the Trotskyist Socialist Party (aka Militant), it is not surprising, however, that he focuses mainly on the question of whether the “fledgeling Communist Party had the right strategy programme and tactics to take full advantage of the strike”. Why the BNP gets support: Naomi Byron reviews Fair by Joy Wilkinson

“DODGEMS – WHO needs them when we can go round and round in circles by ourselves and get skint and whiplash in the process?”…

Stop Bush & Blair’s terror

Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan…: THE RESULT of George Bush spreading his version of ‘freedom and democracy’ is evident worldwide: three Guantanamo Bay prisoners have hanged themselves, while death and destruction continues in both Iraq and Afghanistan…

International students’ movements and working class struggles

EARLIER THIS year students in France occupied universities and organised mass protest demonstrations to defeat the Chirac government’s ‘hire and fire’ law (CPE) which attacked young workers’ rights…

Palestinian authority on the brink of civil war?

PALESTINIANS RECENTLY interviewed in the press described their life in Gaza and the West Bank as like “living on the set of a horror film”, writes Kevin Simpson, CWI, London.

PCS conference a distinctive voice in the British trade union movement

FIVE TIMES-elected trade union president Janice Godrich opened last week’s civil service union PCS conference, saying that the union has a distinctive voice in the British trade union movement, writes Bill Mullins.

Will UNISON fight on pensions and NHS cuts?

UNISON conference: UNISON’s ANNUAL Delegate Conference will be held in Bournemouth from 20 to 24 June, preceded by the local government and other smaller service group conferences on 18 and 19 June…

Higher Education pay deal: Opportunities lost – further action can get more

LATE IN the evening on 6 June, negotiators for the newly formed University and College Union (UCU) reached a deal with the employers UCEA over pay in Higher Education, writes Thomas House.