Archive for October 2005

6 October 2005

Ten years ago - Liverpool dockers' strike

THE ALMOST three-year long struggle by Liverpool dockers began at the end of September ten years ago...

6 October 2005

New attack on council workers' pensions

IT'S CLEAR that the truce over pensions between local government workers and New Labour is now over...

6 October 2005

Grudging acceptance of Gate Gourmet deal

THE GRUDGING acceptance by Gate Gourmet workers of the deal cobbled together between the TGWU leadership and Gate Gourmet management looks likely to bring an end to this dispute...

6 October 2005

Why the IRA campaign failed to defeat the British state

Lessons of Northern Ireland: AFTER THE recent report confirming that the IRA has 'decommissioned' its arms, NIALL MULHOLLAND looks at the approach taken by socialists to the IRA's campaign after the 'Troubles' re-emerged in the late 1960s...

6 October 2005

French unions unite to protest and strike

A UNITED front of French trade union confederations (the first time since 1976) is organising a national day of action and strikes on Tuesday 4 October...

6 October 2005

China - new 'great power' or new revolution?

UNTIL RECENTLY China was seen as the main economic lifeline for world capitalism...

6 October 2005

Scottish by-elections: Workers reject political establishment

THE SCOTTISH Socialist Party (SSP) contested two by-elections last week. In the Glasgow Cathcart Scottish parliament election CWI member Ronnie Stevenson...

6 October 2005

Global warming: Profit system guilty!

CAPITALISM IS screwing up the world! Scientists say that because of global warming, land and sea species are dying out faster than previously predicted,...

6 October 2005

Tory Party fights for its survival

EXTOLLED FOR decades as the most successful capitalist party in Europe, caretaker leader Michael Howard this week presides over a squabbling bunch of would-be successors in the Tory party...

6 October 2005

Come to Socialism 2005 - the forum for real debate

New Labour is so terrified of debate that they did not allow discussion on Iraq at their party conference. Eighty-two year old delegate Walter Wolfgang's one word of criticism 'nonsense' was enough to have him physically thrown out the conference and detained under the terrorism act.
Socialism 2005 pages

6 October 2005

Why this year's Labour Party conference poses the need for a new workers' party

Time to take the 'German' road: IT IS twenty years since Neil Kinnock, then Labour leader, talked about 'grotesque chaos' in his infamous witch-hunting attack at Labour Party conference on Liverpool City Council and the Militant Tendency (predecessor to th...

6 October 2005

Hands off our hospitals!

BIG BUSINESS is queuing up to try and make big money out of the NHS. But every week, in many different areas, there are new protests at policies that...

13 October 2005

Germany: Grand coalition against workers

GERMANY'S GENERAL election on 18 September saw a defeat for both of the so-called big peoples' parties (the social democratic SPD and the conservative CDU/CSU)...

13 October 2005

Peace in Algeria?

THE ALGERIAN regime claimed an overwhelming (and totally unbelievable) 97% 'yes' vote and 80% turnout in its referendum on a 'peace and reconciliation charter', held on 29 September...

13 October 2005

Sri Lanka: USP launches election campaign

THE PRESIDENTIAL election campaign in Sri Lanka got into full swing last Friday and so did the campaign of the United Socialist Party (CWI, Sri Lanka)...

13 October 2005

Venezuela: Socialism back on the agenda

LESS THAN 15 years ago leading philosophers, capitalist commentators and politicians hurried to the burial ground of the bureaucratic Stalinist states of Russia and Eastern Europe and declared socialism...

13 October 2005

Clear Oliver Campbell's name

"I HAVE spent 12 years in prison for for a crime I didn't commit...

13 October 2005

Kinnock repeats bitter attack

Liverpool council 20 years on: TWENTY YEARS ago, at the 1985 Labour party conference, the then Labour leader Neil Kinnock (now Baron Kinnock) made an infamous attack on Liverpool city council's left-wing leaders...

13 October 2005

United action needed to defend pensions

BLAIR'S NEW Labour government is once again preparing to attack public-sector workers' pensions...

13 October 2005

Socialism 2005: Our big weekend of discussion and debate!

EACH WEEK in the socialist we will be highlighting different sessions and courses from the agenda of Socialism 2005 - a weekend of discussion and debate taking place on 12/13 November, 2005...

13 October 2005

Kick the fat cats out of the NHS

DIRECTORS OF the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, some already on as much as £140,000, have been awarded an 8% pay rise...

13 October 2005

Appeal from the Trade Union Rights Campaign

MANY AID agencies will be collecting funds over the next weeks. Unfortunately this will be distributed by the same corrupt government whose...

13 October 2005

Socialists killed in Kalam

Rising anger at Musharraf's regime: On Monday 10 October the socialist spoke to Khalid Bhatti from the Socialist Movement Pakistan (SMP, the counterpart of the Socialist Party), in Lahore, before he set off to visit the earthquake-affected...

13 October 2005

Asian earthquake disaster: Poor abandoned again

THE RECENT disasters of Hurricane Katrina, the Asian Tsunami, and now the earthquake affecting Pakistan, Kashmir and India have one thing in common...

20 October 2005

London bus workers reject pay offer

SEVENTY PERCENT of TGWU drivers at London General buses voted for industrial action in a ballot on 14 October...

20 October 2005

Challenging 'partnership'

DVLA Swansea: SOCIALIST PARTY members and other Left Unity supporters in civil service union PCS at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) in Swansea, have laid down a marker for the future by challenging the current right-wing le...

20 October 2005

Strong solidarity action against Connex union-busting

ON 6 OCTOBER, a five hour unofficial strike almost completely stopped the underground system in Stockholm...

20 October 2005

Iraq: Women's rights pushed back

THE INVASION and occupation of Iraq has resulted in the deaths and suffering of millions of ordinary Iraqis...

20 October 2005

Poorest areas of towns and villages suffer most

Asian Earthquake disaster: I HAVE been in Bagh, a city in Jammu and Kashmir. I arrived with a truckload of aid from workers and trade unionists in Lahore. This is just one of five...

20 October 2005

Sleepwalking to segregation?

IS BRITAIN "sleepwalking its way to segregation" and US-style ghettos, as claimed by Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality?...

20 October 2005

Students are searching for a socialist alternative

University Freshers' fairs: The response to our stalls at Manchester University, Manchester Metropolitan University and Salford University was brilliant...

20 October 2005

Come to Socialism 2005 - defend democratic rights

Ejecting Walter Wolfgang from Labour Party conference for daring to heckle Jack Straw is one thing but then to subject him to a search under the Terrorism Act Section 44 does more than just add insult to injury.

Go to Socialism 2005 webpages...

20 October 2005

Courts fail to tackle rail dangers

PRIVATISATION OF public transport has consistently put profits before safety and the courts say they can do very little about it...

20 October 2005

Government climbs down but questions still remain

FACING THE possible threat of the biggest strike movement since 1926 it appears that the New Labour government has partially retreated from some of its plans on public-sector pensions - such as increasing the retirement age...

20 October 2005

Health service... condition critical!

EVIDENCE IS piling up about the damage which Labour's policies are doing to the health service...

20 October 2005

Take over the drug companies

THE SPREADING of the bird 'flu virus has shown up the complacency of governments and the big pharmaceutical firms' hard-faced profiteering...

27 October 2005

The politics of relief: political manoeuvres begin

Asian earthquake disaster: THERE HAS been a vigorous response by working class people in Pakistan and Kashmir to help the victims and those affected by the devastating earthquake in these regions...

27 October 2005

Defending trade union rights

SUPERMARKET COMPANY Morrison's have issued two of the TGWU stewards at their massive Gadbrook Park distribution depot, Northwich, Cheshire, with disciplinary notices, effectively de-recognising them...

27 October 2005

Stop these drastic hospital cuts

WHEN LEEDS Socialist Party were campaigning against health service cuts, a nurse came up to our stall and told us that staffing levels were at danger level...

27 October 2005

Pensions battle not over - but Labour in retreat

THE PENSIONS battle is far from over. But, the preparedness of millions of public-sector workers to take united action has forced the Labour...

27 October 2005

Socialist Students -

THIS YEAR, Socialist Students has been distinguished as the 'active socialists' on campus, with an increased support for our ideas and...

27 October 2005

Conference for action needed for new mass workers' party

IN THE first of two articles, PETER TAAFFE, general secretary of the Socialist Party, says that the time for stepping up the campaign for a mass workers' party in Britain is not just ripe - it is rotten ripe...

27 October 2005

Rioting in Lozells

THE RIOT and murder in the Lozells area of Birmingham over the weekend were horrific...

27 October 2005

United against fascism

NICK GRIFFIN, leader of the fascist British National Party (BNP), is in court in Leeds on Wednesday 2 November facing charges of inciting racial hatred...

27 October 2005

Keep 'the market' out of schools

SO BLAIR wants to make his mark on history in his last term of office with "pivotal change" in education...

27 October 2005

Come to Socialism 2005

A weekend of debate and discussion organised by the Socialist Party, 12-13 November...