16 articles from the Socialist, issue 427
16 February 2006
Troops out of Iraq
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THE SICKENING video images showing British soldiers kicking and beating unarmed Iraqi teenagers in 2004 and new images of abused Iraqi prisoners at the US-run Abu Ghraib prison in 2003, will come as little surprise to those in the anti-Iraq war movement…
International Socialist Resistance: What does capitalism mean to young people? More than ever it compels us to fight back if we want any kind of future. We are the first generation since World War Two to be facing a worse life than our parents. And the frustration…
OVER 100 people assembled for the Hands Off Hackney Schools campaign meeting on 8 February. They were showing their opposition to the new education White Paper (see editorial page 2) and to Hackney being used as a test ground for…
ID cards: ‘Creeping compulsion’ and grovelling MPs
YET ANOTHER threatened ‘backbench revolt’ on identity (ID) cards by Labour MPs fizzled out on 13 February after some minor concessions swayed most ‘rebels’…
The real cost of BP mega-profits
OIL GIANT British Petroleum (BP) made £11 billion in annual profits in 2005, 25% up on the year before. But that record-breaking surplus would become an £18 billion loss if you start calculating the firm’s damage to the environment,…
Universities and the arms trade
Campaign ends Exeter’s ‘unethical investment’: A SOCIALIST Students member at Exeter University, JIM THOMPSON, recently started a campaign against the University’s investment in the arms trade…
Haitian poor rebel at suspected poll-rigging
HAITIANS WENT to the polls on 8 February for the first vote since the populist president Jean Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in a US-backed coup, two years ago…
Building an alternative to the profit system
Socialist Party Conference 2006: 250 DELEGATES and visitors attended the Socialist Party’s national conference, held in Skegness from the 11-13 February. Below are reports from the main debates at the conference. These can only give a flavour of the rich discussions…
New Labour attacks the sick and disabled
Welfare reform: THE NEW Labour government has plans to get people off incapacity benefit. They claim that "it’s healthier to work than be sat at home with nothing to do". Of course it is, but if you can’t work why should you be harassed…
Keep fighting New Labour’s Education Bill
EVER SINCE the controversial Education White Paper was issued in the autumn, speculation has grown that the government could be forced to retreat from their plans to privatise and fragment education…
Labour’s pro-business policies are punished
THE DUNFERMLINE and West Fife by-election on 9 February was a major defeat for New Labour. The Liberal-Democrats overturned an 11,000 Labour majority in a solidly working-class constituency – with a big ex-mining community that…
JEREMY SANDFORD’S drama, Cathy Come Home, about a young family who slide into homelessness and poverty was a defining moment in 1960s television, demonstrating how far drama could influence the political agenda…
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month
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FEBRUARY IS Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) History Month. The idea comes from Black History Month as a way to redress the lack of acknowledgement of the history of LGBT people in society, schools, colleges…
Striking postal workers build support
HUNDREDS OF striking Belfast postal workers attended a city centre rally on 14 February, organised by Belfast trades council. Royal Mail has been paralysed by a magnificent show of solidarity by postal workers across Belfast, fighting…
ON 7 February, council workers in Tower Hamlets, east London went on strike. They walked out because of a new sickness procedure that the New Labour-dominated council imposed last September. The strike is a first step to force…
Marching for jobs and services
AN UNRELENTING series of attacks on jobs in Sheffield and the subsequent cuts in services has led to a growing willingness of workers and community groups to voice their anger…
