Archive for October 2008
2 October 2008
Bradford & Bingley: We need real nationalisation
THE CAMPAIGN for a New Workers' Party (CNWP) issued the press release below, written by Coventry Socialist Party councillor and the CNWP national chair Dave Nellist...
2 October 2008
The bishop and the 'bank robbers'
LAST WEEK the Archbishop of York, John Sentanu, attacked many business people - at the Worshipful Company of International Bankers' annual dinner...
2 October 2008
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Students from Portsmouth, Southampton, Winchester and Oxford lobby John Denham MP , photo Ben Robinson |
2 October 2008
Lots of new recruits for Socialist Students
ALL OVER England and Wales, Socialist Students have been holding stalls at university 'freshers fairs'...
2 October 2008
World financial meltdown: THE COLLAPSE of US banks is grabbing the headlines worldwide. But the consequences of the current crisis are also starting to hit the so-called BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China...
2 October 2008
What is short-selling and will the ban have any effect?
UK stock markets: THE UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) has banned short-selling on certain shares until January 2009, "to guard against further instability in the financial sector", writes Fiona Pashazadeh.
2 October 2008
FACED WITH New Labour's right-wing government, the Tories sometimes present themselves as a party of the people, writes Roger Shrives.
2 October 2008
Another nail in New Labour's coffin
WHILE BANKS are collapsing, the politicians are busy boasting and back-stabbing at party conferences, writes Hugh Caffrey.
2 October 2008
Climate change calamities: Socialist planning needed
The "methane time bomb" has ignited, the Independent newspaper recently declared. The arctic permafrost is melting and releasing a greenhouse gas twenty times more powerful than carbon dioxide, which threatens to rapidly heat up the planet. Urgent action is needed...
2 October 2008
Local government pay dispute in Scotland: solid support for strike
Council workers across Scotland responded in massive numbers to the second national all-out strike day on 24 September...
2 October 2008
Unison goes to arbitration - a strategy or surrender?
Not long ago, Unison was leading the charge at the TUC for a united campaign of the public-sector unions against the government's pay freeze, writes a London Unison local government member.
2 October 2008
Union calls ballot over health pay
DELEGATES TO the Amicus/Unite NHS National Industrial Committee have voted unanimously to ballot members for action over pay in October, writes a member of the Unite NHS committee.
2 October 2008
Unions must fight to defend Ford jobs
"You could gift wrap a Fiesta, stick it in the back of a Transit, sell the Transit and still make a profit", were the words of former Southampton Transit manager, writes Nick Chaffey, Socialist Party and National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) Southampton.
2 October 2008
Lincoln - fight council cuts plan
STAFF AT City of Lincoln council face uncertain times. As if a real-terms pay cut was not enough, workers now face £6.5 million of service cuts over the next five years. Marc Glasscoe, Socialist Party Lincoln, writes.
2 October 2008
ANOTHER INQUIRY is now underway into the killing of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes in July 2005 in south London...
2 October 2008
Swansea train strike: Swansea train cleaners employed by ISS and contracted to clean First Great Western (FGW) trains have staged a second 24-hour strike over poor pay and conditions...
2 October 2008
Cuts and privatisation threaten new floods
TWO YEARS after they were first flooded, Gloucester residents Martin Ison and Tina Spiers are still cramped into the upstairs of their house while below reeks of damp and looks like a building site, writes Chris Moore, Gloucestershire.
2 October 2008
Comment: With the US mired in crisis, some commentators look to China and other so-called emerging powers to fill the breach...
2 October 2008
Liberty by Glyn Maxwell at Shakespeare's Globe
Reviewed by Nancy Taaffe Marxists are often accused of being idealists. However, in my mind, the million dollar questions are always whether the idea is any good, whether it can become a reality, and whether it moves history society forward or drags it back.
2 October 2008
Profit system failing: The world economy, already in turmoil from the credit crunch, was swept further into an abyss by the thunderbolt news that the US congress had rejected a 'blank cheque' $700 billion bailout of failing banks, writes Judy Beishon, editor, The Socialist.
4 October 2008
The Socialist Party fights for socialist change - a democratic society run for the needs of all and not the profits of a few...
7 October 2008
Editorial: Casino capitalism's crisis continues
"Black Mondays used to be a once-a-decade event - now they're coming along more regularly than a London bus" declared one senior London trader as the UK stock market suffered the biggest one day points fall on record...
8 October 2008
Lessons of the 1990s recession in Japan
ECONOMISTS AND political leaders are looking to the recent economic history of Japan with growing fear. Is the US economy also heading for a 'lost decade'? asks Jared Wood, Oxford Socialist Party.
8 October 2008
ACCORDING TO the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics), the rate at which new homes are being built by the private sector has fallen to a new record low...
8 October 2008
Responsibility for the 'age of irresponsibility'
Comment: For years opinion-formers have been mobilised in defence of capitalism. They have argued that it is not fatally flawed, that it is only the criminally reckless elements ripping off the system that created...
8 October 2008
Build a mass movement for free education: SINCE THE New Labour government brought in tuition fees eleven years ago, students have been told that "debt is good." The government claimed that the university fees and loans system increased social mobility, that all students who graduate would have their debts cancelled out by increased earnin, writes Iain Dalton, Bangor Socialist Students, and Matt Dobson Socialist Students national organiser.
8 October 2008
University workers fight pension attacks
University of Sussex management should have known better than to attack the pensions of some of the lowest paid workers on campus, writes Peter Knight.
8 October 2008
Students look for socialist ideas
The Socialist has received reports from all over the country about the success Socialist Students has had in recruiting new members. The following reports give a flavour of the events, even in the universities where student union rules made it hard and expensive to sign up to join Socialist Students.
8 October 2008
NUT strike ballot: Action on pay can win
"WE CAN'T back down now," one young teacher told a recent National Union of Teachers (NUT) meeting in Lewisham, writes Martin Powell-Davies, secretary Lewisham NUT.
8 October 2008
Tory leader David Cameron must have been looking forward to his party's annual conference. Polls were predicting a New Labour wipe-out at the next general election, and the Labour Party was very publicly split over Gordon Brown's leadership.
8 October 2008
The sacking of Blair, London's police chief
LONDON MAYOR Boris Johnson's sacking of Sir Ian Blair, chief police officer of the Metropolitan Police force, has been described by Blair's supporters as a move to drag the capital's police service backwards, away from perceived 'politically correct' policing, writes Hugo Pierre.
8 October 2008
Mbeki dismissed by ANC as South Africa's president
THE RESIGNATION of South Africa's president Thabo Mbeki on 20 September after being 'recalled' by the executive committee of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) allied to Mbeki's rival - Jacob Zuma - has plunged the ANC into its most serious political crisis and a potential split. Weizmann Hamilton of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM, CWI in South Africa) explains the background and the likely consequences.
8 October 2008
A day in the life of a care worker
Getting up at 6am to go to work is normal for a lot of people. This is what I did yesterday, so I was in time to start my shift at 7.45am. It's now 6am the following day and I am still at work...
8 October 2008
"Telling the boss: You can't do that"
When I became a union rep a few years ago at my current train depot, it was basically because no-one else would do it, an Aslef member writes.
8 October 2008
Fight against the Unison witch-hunt
Pat Lawlor, a convenor at Belfast Royal Victoria Hospital, was expelled from Unison at a Belfast disciplinary hearing on 3 October...
8 October 2008
Frustration with union leadership
Comment: Like the London Unison member (issue 550 of the Socialist), I am angry and frustrated at the direction of our bid for a decent pay rise in local government...
8 October 2008
Greenwich Unison members are celebrating yet another victory. Earlier this year, library workers were warned by managers of impending closures and compulsory redundancies...
8 October 2008
The Keep the Metro Public campaign, including trade union activists and members of the Socialist Party have handed out thousands of leaflets opposing the privatisation of the Newcastle Metro, writes Paul Phillips and Ian Patterson, Newcastle Socialist Party.
8 October 2008
No to incinerators, give us a real say!
Residents against Pollution made a noisy and eye-catching protest outside the Waltham Forest council cabinet meeting in east London last week, writes Paula Mitchell, Waltham Forest Socialist Party.
8 October 2008
London bus strike: Eleven London bus garages will be affected by a strike on 10 and 22 October. 2,500 Unite members working for Metroline voted over 88% in favour of strike action. Workers at Arriva South and North and East...
8 October 2008
Socialist meeting blocked by councillor
SOCIALIST PARTY members in Debden, Essex have been blocked from organising a public meeting at Debden Park community centre on the world economic crisis, writes Greg Maughan.
8 October 2008
Labour bails out the bosses: Waiting for the bus outside Asda, I assess my situation with regards to fuel poverty. Asda is not my nearest supermarket but I think it's the cheapest. Sally Huggins, Waltham Forest Socialist Party, comments.
13 October 2008
Video: Protest outside the Bank of England
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13 October 2008
Government bailouts: Measures to prop up capitalism
The Socialist Editorial 13 October 2008
15 October 2008
"Give us what the bankers got"
ON THE same day that four big banks came cap in hand to the government for a £60 billion taxpayers' bailout - and got it - supporters of the London Shop Stewards Network gathered outside the Bank of England with placards, banners and leaflets...
15 October 2008
Recession in Britain: Anger and bitterness towards the financiers
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Alistair Darling reads the beginners guide to the economy, cartoon by Suz |
15 October 2008
Government bailouts: major measures to prop up capitalism
The Socialist editorial: "We're all socialists now, comrade." Not a headline from a previous issue of The Socialist, but carried last week in the ultra-conservative Daily Telegraph...
15 October 2008
Political protest in Liverpool will not be silenced!
THE SOCIALIST has reported the continual harassment by the police of political campaigners in Liverpool's Church Street, a centre for stalls and campaigners for decades...
15 October 2008
Austria: Far right makes big gains - left vote squeezed
AUSTRIA'S 28 September general election saw both government parties - the Social Democrats (SPÖ), and the People's Party (ÖVP) - lose massively, writes Laura Rafetseder, Sozialistische Linkspartei (SLP - CWI Austria).
15 October 2008
Afghanistan - war without end?
"WE'RE NOT going to win this war", is the frank admission by Britain's commander in Afghanistan that the Taliban insurgency is not being defeated...
15 October 2008
Mandelson - New minister for the rich
PETER MANDELSON, Baron of Foy and Hartlepool is now secretary of state for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and president of the Board of Trade...
15 October 2008
Bangor: Organising to fight university tuition fees
SUPPORTERS OF the Campaign to Defeat Fees in Bangor university took our fight to build a mass campaign to beat the fees to students around campus, writes Bangor Socialist Students.
15 October 2008
Bankers bailed out: EUROPEAN LEADERS are following Brown and Darling's policy of big bank bailouts. The total bailout in Europe could total £1.5 trillion while the US government seems likely to inject another £400 billion...
15 October 2008
Defend and extend abortion rights
Around 300 women and trade unionists attended a meeting last week in parliament in defence of abortion rights and a woman's right to choose organised by Abortion Rights (AR)...
15 October 2008
75th anniversary of Walter Greenwood's Love on the Dole
Book review: In 1966, a quarter of the population tuned in to watch Ken Loach's Cathy Come Home, a groundbreaking work which brought the issues of homelessness and unemployment into living rooms across Britain, writes Reviewed by Dave Gorton.
15 October 2008
Capitalism in crisis: Why you should come to Socialism 2008
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15 October 2008
Unite members will be bemused and concerned at the news that the union's joint executive committee has delayed the full merger of the Amicus and the Transport and General sections of Unite for six months, writes Kevin Parslow, 1/1228 TGWU/Unite branch secretary, personal capacity and Mick Cotter.
15 October 2008
Unison right-wing insecurity begins to show
The growing insecurity of Unison's ruling right wing clique became visible at the national executive council (NEC) meeting on 8 October...
15 October 2008
Opposition grows to Kirklees schools plans
Government plans for academies have arrived in Kirklees, Yorkshire, in the form of their misnamed Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, writes Mike Forster, chief education steward Kirklees Unison, personal capacity.
15 October 2008
Successful outcome for Suzanne Muna
The Socialist recently reported that Unison member Suzanne Muna was facing serious disciplinary action from the Housing Corporation...
15 October 2008
Standing for president of Usdaw
Socialist Party member Robbie Segal will stand in the election for president of the Usdaw. Robbie shook the entire shopworkers' union, Usdaw, by gaining 40% of the vote for general secretary in the ballot result announced on 15 September 2008...
15 October 2008
Repossessions grow as banking crisis hits
THE FINANCIAL crisis is adding greatly to people's problems in getting decent housing. Despite prices of houses and flats falling at present, the previous huge price rises coupled with less disposable...
15 October 2008
Planning Bill: Local views sidelined for big business
CONSULTATION ON a government white paper - Planning for a sustainable future - ended recently. The government claims that changes are needed to the planning system to speed up and streamline the planning...
15 October 2008
Local government Scotland: Reject the pay offer!
The three local government trade unions are recommending that the 200,000 council workers in Scotland reject the employer's latest offer of 3% in 2008 and 2.5% in 2009, writes Brian Smith.
15 October 2008
London bus workers strike for a living wage
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London bus strike, photo Paul Mattsson |
15 October 2008
Nottingham Trent University attempts to de-recognise the lecturers' union
Beat the 'Man from Mars' Hundreds of members of the University and College Union (UCU) gathered outside Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall last week where the vice chancellor was delivering a speech to students...
15 October 2008
Staff and students unite over pensions
On 10 October, over 80 technicians, porters and IT services staff, members of Unite, went out on the first of four strike days as Sussex university launched another attack on staff, writes Lee Vernon, Sussex university students union.
15 October 2008
Sack the bankers not the workers
The proposed takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB will result in anything from 20,000 to 40,000 jobs being cut, writes a Cheltenham and Gloucester bank worker.
21 October 2008
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Oliver Twist banks - Please sir, can I have some more?, photo www.squashdonkey.co.uk |
21 October 2008
Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) members across all government departments have voted to take strike action against the government's imposed 2% pay rise maximum, writes Bill Mullins.
21 October 2008
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Fords: Our jobs - here to stay |
22 October 2008
We can't afford private rail. Nationalise the railways now!
Comment: With above-inflation price rises for tickets being announced for next year, only the rich will be able to afford to travel by train, writes Andrew Walton, Leicester.
22 October 2008
Kirklees: The battle to save our schools heats up
After last week's humiliating vote at the Kirklees council meeting, where the ruling Tory cabinet was defeated by a two-to-one margin over its Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, a war of words has now broken out between the three main parties, writes Mike Forster.
22 October 2008
JCB has just announced a further reduction of 19% in direct labour costs. This equates to 500 redundancies across its UK group. This comes on top of several hundred redundancies already made since August...
22 October 2008
Bolton: Staff at two Bolton schools took strike action on 21 October over issues arising from the "academies" programme...
22 October 2008
Protest at disciplinary action against teachers
Scotland: Four teachers and members of the EIS teaching union at the Vale of Leven Academy in West Dunbartonshire are facing disciplinary action for refusing to cross a local government workers' picket line during the Scottish council workers' national strike on 24 September...
22 October 2008
Liverpool: Mass protest wins back the right to campaign!
FOLLOWING MONTHS of protest against Merseyside police harassing and arresting local campaigners, our democratic right to hold stalls and campaign has been re-established, writes Tony Aitman.
22 October 2008
Demonstrators stop fascist march
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Anti-Fascists stop fascist march |
22 October 2008
42-day detention dropped - for now
Democratic rights: THE GOVERNMENT'S proposal to increase how long police can hold you without charge, from 28 days to 42 days, was dropped from its counter-terrorism bill last week, writes Ben Robinson.
22 October 2008
Iceland: A victim of the casino economy
ITS THREE main banks have collapsed and the currency has effectively ceased trading. And with debts totalling ten times the national income of the country, an Icelandic delegation went cap in hand to Moscow. Per-Ake Westerlund (Rattvisepartiet Socialisterna - CWI in Sweden) reports.
22 October 2008
Aer Lingus threatens to axe 1,500 posts
AER LINGUS management has announced a vicious cull of quality jobs in Dublin, Cork and Shannon under the guise that they need to cut costs to survive. This is a total scam, writes Clare Daly, Socialist Party councillor, Dublin (CWI, Ireland).
22 October 2008
Bangor students vote to fight fees
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Bail out the students - not the bankers! - Campaign to Defeat Fees protest, photo Bob Severn |
22 October 2008
Fighting for youth in Lewisham
Interview with Natalie Powell-Davies, 14, recently elected as deputy youth mayor for Lewisham...
22 October 2008
Campaign to Defeat Fees day of action
London: The chant of, "Stop the fees, stop the debt. Give us what the bankers get!" was heard up and down Victoria Street as Socialist Students protested outside the Department of Innovation, Universities and...
22 October 2008
Hard as rock: Faced with escalating house repossessions, the government is now urging banks to be lenient on people falling behind with their mortgage payments...
22 October 2008
Socialist measures to fight capitalist crisis
Coventry Socialist Party councillors Dave Nellist and Rob Windsor are putting the following motion to Coventry City Council, calling for wider nationalisation to combat the developing recession, and an end to Private Finance Initiative schemes.The motion will be debated by the council on Tuesday 28...
22 October 2008
Persepolis, directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
Film review: Based on a graphic novel memoir written by Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis is a treat. An animated film, it is unlike anything I've ever seen before, mainly, but not entirely, in black and white and very...
22 October 2008
TV Review: The year 1968 was a momentous year for struggle. The monumental general strike in France and huge movements of students and workers in Italy and Germany; the uprising in Czechoslovakia against Stalinist...
22 October 2008
NHS props up the private profiteers
Comment: With the recent events in the world of high finance, we have seen many examples of the state bailing out private financial institutions, a practice nurse in Wales writes.
29 October 2008
Israel/Palestine Moving towards a new conflict?
Feature Israel was awash with fears and rumours of a new conflict in the summer. The Israeli air force carried out a military exercise which was a dry-run to prepare for bombing Iran's nuclear facilities.
29 October 2008
Postal workers march for their jobs
AROUND 1,000 postal workers, their families and supporters, defied the wind and rain to march through Crewe on 25 October, writes Andy Bentley, Stoke Socialist Party.
29 October 2008
Are we heading for a new Great Depression?
STOCK MARKETS crashing, banks failing... as the world tips into an economic downturn. Not since the 1930s and the Great Depression has capitalism faced such a crisis as that of today. But, asks Philip Stott, are we likely to see a repeat of the world slump that followed the Wall Street Crash of 1929?
29 October 2008
Italy: Mass movement to stop education cuts
ON 17 October, a strike called by the 'unions of the base', without a call being made by the main trade union confederations, mobilised two million workers, writes Linda Schuetz, Lotta per il socialismo, (CWI Italy).
29 October 2008
Ireland: Pensioners' revolt - government forced back
THREE THOUSAND people attended a protest march organised by the Campaign for a Real Public Health Service, a campaign initiated by Socialist Party activists and other health campaigners, in Cork, on 18 October, a reporter from the Socialist Party (CWI, Ireland) writes.
29 October 2008
Royal Glamorgan hospital: Save our neonatal services!
WORKING-CLASS people in the Pontypridd area are mounting an inspiring campaign against the 'temporary' downgrading of neonatal services at Royal Glamorgan hospital (RGH), in Llantrisant, writes Sarah Mayo.
29 October 2008
Recession getting deeper - 'real world' suffering
THE FINANCIAL crisis is getting worse. Across the planet, the stock market casinos have been plummeting. Japan's Nikkei index at one stage hit a 26-year low...
29 October 2008
OIL GIANT BP sparked widespread anger when it announced a record profit of £6.4 billion for the third quarter of 2008...
29 October 2008
National civil service strike 10 November
The Democracy Alliance-led national executive committee of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), which includes members of the Socialist Party, has agreed and announced a national one-day strike on 10 November, writes John McInally, national vice-president PCS.
29 October 2008
JCB - Why should we accept redundancies and pay cuts?
Workers at JCB's UK factories have voted by a two thirds majority to move to short time working, from 39 to 34 hours a week. This will mean a pay cut of over £50 a week, writes A JCB worker.
29 October 2008
Unite calls off London bus strike
The London bus workers' strike planned for 22 October was called off at the last minute by Unite, the union which organises most London bus workers, writes Bill Mullins.
29 October 2008
Fighting cuts at Northampton Uni
Professor Dave Hill, University and College union (UCU) member and supporter of the Campaign for a New Workers' Party, reports for The Socialist on the sackings of two history lecturers at the University of Northampton:...
29 October 2008
Time to change the world - come and hear the case for socialism
Saturday 8 November - Sunday 9 November
University of London Union, Malet Street London WC1
Nearest tube: Euston or Goodge Street
Rally for socialism:
Saturday 8 November 5.30pm-8.30pm; Friends Meeting house, Euston Road, London
29 October 2008
Car industry in crisis: A fighting strategy
The financial crisis is hitting the world car industry for six. Car sales are often the first to fall when boom turns to bust, writes Bill Mullins.
29 October 2008
Thousands of car workers in Ford are facing the reality of the credit crunch. Many of them could be laid off until the New Year. This means that they aren't being made redundant but are paid their basic pay minus their shift rate...
29 October 2008
Newcastle University chancellor is out of touch
Showing no concern for the welfare of students, the Newcastle University chancellor Lord Patten described tuition fees of £3,145 a year as "intolerably low" at the headmasters' and headmistresses' conference last month! Ian Pattison, Newcastle Socialist Students, writes.
29 October 2008
Defeat NUS' undemocratic plans
THE NATIONAL Union of Students (NUS) pro-New Labour leadership are currently trying to push through massive attacks on the union's internal democracy, writes Ben Robinson.
29 October 2008
Worlds apart... in 'them and us' society
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House of Commons TGWU cleaners demonstrating against low pay outside Parliament, photo Molly Cooper |
30 October 2008
Kazakhstan: Shanyrak shanty town in revolt
ON 14 July, police attacked shanty town dwellers in the Shanyrak area of Alma-Ata city, in Kazakhstan. Residents bravely fought back and scores were injured...
19 Nov Socialism 2022
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