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Socialist Party news and analysis
Food bank Britain: Con-Dems turn the clock back
At anti-bedroom tax meetings many people report that they are going without food as they try to pay their rent, writes Steve Score
Bedroom tax – can’t pay, won’t leave: Glasgow demonstration against the bedroom tax and austerity 30 March 2013 , photo by Jim Halfpenny
NSSN conference : Unite to fight all the cuts
Pay cuts, jobs cuts, pension cuts, low pay, high rents, Bedroom Tax… The National Shop Stewards Network conference on 29 June will bring together trade unionists and anti-cuts campaigners to discuss action over the coming months.
Legal aid cuts: Justice in the balance
The new proposals will seriously undermine access to justice. Opportunities, through judicial review, to hold the government to account will be severely curbed
Scales of injustice
Continued deterioration of the Labour Party
The Labour Party, having blatantly accepted capitalism and the need for cuts, is incapable of even pretending to be in opposition
Youth feature
Mass joblessness wrecks lives! Youth must fight for a future
In Sweden, where youth unemployment is 24%, riots have struck the capital Stockholm. Rage has exploded onto the streets following police repression and racism and decades of neoliberal attacks and privatisation
Youth Fight for Jobs protest against Workfare in Stratford’s Westfield shopping centre in London 25 February 2012, photo Senan
A day in the life of a Primark employee
NHS feature
NHS crisis: Turn anger into action
No cuts at Royal Glamorgan Hospital: A former GP wrote to the Independent last week saying that the National Health Service (NHS) “is being intentionally destroyed in order that the sick and injured can be fully exploited for private profit”
London march to save the NHS, 18.5.13 , photo Dave Carr
International socialist news and analysis
Turkey: Mass movement challenges Erdogan’s authoritarian government
For a one-day general strike as the next step in the struggle: KESK, Turkey’s Confederation of Public Workers’ Unions, announced a national strike against police violence
Socialist Party workplace news
On 3 June, a week of rolling strike action in the two largest government departments, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the tax department HMRC, began
Barking Job Centre PCS on strike 5 June 2013, photo Socialist Party
97% vote for strike action at Carling brewery
Thera Trust: the campaign moves up a gear
Unison and Labour: Welsh government cuts are still cuts
Socialist Party members attending Unison conference tell me that there are motions on the agenda congratulating the Welsh government for supposedly protecting Welsh workers from the worst impact of the cuts, writes a Unison member.
Lecturers’ union UCU members vote to fight austerity
On 29-31 May, the University and College Union (UCU) held its national congress in Brighton. The congress took place against the backdrop of vicious Con-Dem cuts, which had provoked massive anger
Socialist history
1983: A political voice for the working class
Thirty years ago, on 9 June 1983, the gloom cast by Thatcher’s re-election as Tory prime minister was partly offset by the election of two campaigning supporters of the Socialist’s predecessor Militant, Dave Nellist and Terry Fields, as Labour MPs.
Terry Fields and Dave Nellist – two Militant MPS, photo Dave Sinclair
Socialist Party reports and campaigns
Campaigning against the bedroom tax
Scotland: Over 2,000 people attended the anti-bedroom tax rally in Glasgow’s George Square on 1 June, called by the Scottish Anti-Bedroom Tax Federation
Glasgow demonstration against the bedroom tax and austerity 30 March 2013, photo Jim Halfpenny
Standing for TUSC in Woolston, Southampton
Socialist and campaigner Sue Atkins explains why she is standing for TUSC in the Southampton Woolston ward byelection on 13 June.
Save the Independent Living Fund
On 10 June, disabled people who use the Independent Living Fund (ILF) and their supporters are holding a ‘party’ in central London to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the ILF and publicise the campaign led by Disabled People Against Cuts and Inclusion London to save it, writes Stuart Bracking.
Needed: new social housing NOT unaffordable rents
Support the Fighting Fund collectathon!
Socialist Party national organisers’ school
Ninety Socialist Party members from every region of England and Wales attended a weekend organiser’s school in Staffordshire on 1-2 June. Siobhan Friel from Coventry reports.
Readers’ comments
“To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance,” said US president Obama in a major speech recently where he promised to scale back the use of unmanned drones to attack targets in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere