Articles from the Socialist, issue 599

28 October 2009

Support post workers, this is no time to equivocate

Postal strike reports: Defending the service

BBC Question Time panel – Workers’ voice denied against BNP

Editorial: Eight million people watched BNP leader Nick Griffin on Question Time, the biggest audience for the programme in its thirty year history…

Far right shut out of Newport by mass protest

Socialism 2009 forum – can we build a party for working class people?

At Socialism 2009, the third session in the ‘Britain after the general election’ course will be a wide ranging debate on how the crisis in working class political representation can be solved, writes Dave Nellist, Coventry Socialist Party councillor.

Huddersfield march for jobs

Students and young workers from Huddersfield took part in a Youth Fight for Jobs (YFJ) demonstration on 21 October, protesting against planned cuts in Kirklees council services, writes Ian Slattery, Huddersfield YFJ.

Cardiff Socialist Student elected

Afghanistan: anti-war demo

SEVERAL THOUSAND anti-war protesters marched from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square, London, on 24 October to protest against the eight-year long military occupation of Afghanistan by Nato forces…

Darling you’re talking rubbish!

WHAT A turnaround. Just a couple of weeks ago, chancellor Alistair Darling, claimed he could see the green shoots of economic recovery. Many media commentators said so too. Then the Office for National…

80th anniversary of the Wall Street Crash: Capitalist failure – then and now

Scant attention has been paid in the media to the 80th anniversary of the October 1929 Wall Street crash. The capitalists can hardly repeat their theme of yesterday – “it can never happen again.”
Peter Taaffe, general secretary of the Socialist Party, takes a look at how much of it really has happened again, and spells out the underlying cause.

Strikes sweep across Yorkshire

“Three strikes and we’re out” was the front page headline of the anti-union local paper, the Sheffield Star, above a photo-montage of firefighters, busdrivers and posties, all on strike in Sheffield last Friday, writes Alistair Tice.

Battle for jobs in Land Registry

Ex Ford/Visteon pensioners protest in Swansea

Leicester uni cuts protest

Call centres – public services on the cheap

THE PROLIFERATION of call centres within the civil service and related bodies is rooted in the government’s pro-market ‘reform and modernisation’ programme of cuts in investment, jobs and conditions and office closures and privatisation…

Newport Rising 1839

Feature: ON 4 November 1839, 170 years ago, the ‘Chartist Rising’ in Newport, south Wales, ended in bloodshed…

Daily Mail homophobia

Comment: Jan Moir, a Daily Mail journalist, has provoked outrage with a blatantly homophobic column attacking the recently deceased Boyzone singer, Stephen Gately, writes Conor Payne, Socialist Party Ireland.

Film review – Capitalism: a love story

Michael Moore’s new film Capitalism: A Love Story opens with a simple message: “Capitalism is evil,” and must be replaced with a system that puts the interests of ordinary people over profit, writes Reviewed by Dan DiMaggio, Socialist Alternative, USA.