Fifty anticuts pages taken down under cover of royal celebrations At the same time as the royal wedding, alongside a wave of raids on squats and ‘pre-emptive’ arrests of activists, Facebook took down fifty pages, all belonging to groups coordinating protest against the government’s vicious spending cuts.
“Yes we can!” gloated Barak Obama as he announced to the world that the US has assassinatesd enemy number one, Osama Bin Laden, reports Martin Suchanek. Read it here Dave Stockton looks at the relationship between Osama Bin Laden, his politics, and American imperialism. Read it here
“For richer, for poorer?” A sick joke at our expense, writes Joana Ramiro
Nina Power comments in The Guardian on the intense and repressive police crackdown on anti-cuts protesters, just a few days before the royal wedding. Today, several social centres were raided. In Camberwell, south London, between 8 and 10 police vans tried to evict residents from the ‘Ratstar’, even though they had been given permission to […]
There have been two events in the last few months which have shown that we have the power to beat the government. The first was when the students occupied the Tory HQ at Millbank, writes Simon Hardy in this month’s editorial
Andrew Lansley’s NHS and Social Care Bill is a fraud. It’s no exaggeration to say that it will destroy the NHS as we know it – letting privatisation rip the heart out of our health service. John Bowman explains
Born in Essex, and son of a pathologist, Lansley’s first taste of politics came at the university of Exeter where he won a close battle to become president of the student guild against a communist candidate, securing support from Tory, Labour, and Lib Dem students.
GIANT MEDICAL and outsourcing companies are salivating at the prospect of getting lucrative contracts for NHS healthcare. That’s why private health bosses donated £750,000 to David Cameron’s 2010 election campaign. Now they are hoping their loyalty will be rewarded with the passing of Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s NHS and Social Care Bill.
HEALTH WORKERS have formed a new rank and file network to stop the attacks on the NHS. NHS staff are dedicated to the services we provide. Many of us didn’t get into this for the money – in the case of nurses certainly not!
AT A TIME when we are facing a major offensive on workers’ gains and the union movement, the 85th anniversary of the 1926 general strike is a good opportunity to review its lessons for us today. Dave Stockton explains why
Are the cuts about ideology or necessity? Many on the left have argued they have more to do with Tory politics than raw economic necessity, a case put forcefully by journalist and blogger Johann Hari. Richard Brenner puts forward an alternative perspective
THE FIGHT against the cuts is taking a big step forward on 30 June, with a string of unions now pledging to shut the country down in a mass public sector strike, writes Jeremy Drinkall
THIS YEAR’S NUT conference passed important resolutions calling for co-ordinated strikes over pensions and backed calls for a one day public sector general strike. Teachers will now join with hundreds of thousands of other public sector workers on strike on 30 June in defence of their pensions.
Fierce fighting continues across Libya as the revolutionaries struggle to bring down Gaddafi’s regime.
The revolution in Egypt has entered a new phase. New independent trade unions are recruiting tens of thousands and demanding an end to starvation wages and sweatshop conditions. Marcus Halaby and Jeremy Drinkall assess where the movement can go from here
SYRIAN security forces shot dead over 80 protesters on 22 April. They killed another 12 the next day, as the democracy movement attempted to bury its dead. President Bashar al-Assad has opened a river of blood between his regime and the people.
Prime Minister David Cameron has again whipped up racist fears about immigration, calling for “good immigration, not mass immigration” and claiming he will stop “hundreds of thousands” coming to Britain.
“DIRTY BABYLON!” snarled the crowd in time to the reggae beat. It was a line from a 1980s Smiley Culture hit: “Cockney say Ol’ Bill, we say Dirty Babylon”. How appropriate. The death of Smiley Culture in police custody is yet another suspicious death at the hand of the Met. Little wonder it has angered […]
Joana Pinto stood for the Vice President Union Development position at this years NUS conference. Below is her speech, calling for a fighting students union
By Karen Petrie For more than three decades Marx and Engels argued that a revolution was the only way workers could achieve a socialist society. For them revolutionary crises emerged inevitably out of the conflict between classes in capitalist society. Capitalism creates the possibility and necessity for revolution. In the form of the “proletariat”, […]
Tuesday 17 May 5.30pm March from University College Hospital to Whitehall This is a crucial moment for the battle to defend the NHS. Andrew Lansley looks incrreasingly beleagured as the opposition to his plans grows from all sides. The government claim to be listening while they try to stick to their plans, and every day […]
Over 100 Leeds activists gathered on 9th April for the Anti-Cuts Convention, an event aimed at building and uniting the anti-cuts movement and decide our next steps after 26th March, writes Rebecca Anderson
Joana Pinto talks about her experience running for NUS Vice President position, NUS conference, and where students can take the fight from here
The death of Smiley Culture while in police custody has struck a chord that has resonated deeply across south London and Britain’s black community. Even the Evening Standard says thousands will march on 16 April in “the largest black community-led demonstration in years”. Jeremy Drinkall reports
G4S, formerly known as ‘Securicor’ has been awarded a contract to take over Birmingham Prison. The outsourcing security company has a terrible reputation for the security services it has run in the past and those it continues to run today. G4S’ American subsidiary, Wackenhut, runs several privatised prisons in the US where staff have been […]
What caused the credit crunch? Some said lenders got “too greedy”. Others blamed the regulators. Yet more denied it was even happening. The Credit Crunch – A Marxist Analysis offers a radically different explanation. Charting how the events unfolded, and drawing on Karl Marx’s theory of crisis, Richard Brenner and Michael Pröbsting argue that the […]
From the Workers Power archive – April 1981. Mark Hoskisson explains the causes of the Brixton riots, poverty, alienation and systematic racist abuse from the police
Along with thousands of activists, all our readers will be striving to make the 26 March demonstration as big as possible. 500,000 jobs to go in the public sector. Another 500,000 to follow in the private sector. 34 per cent cuts in council spending leading to libraries, youth services, care for the elderly all being […]
Hundreds of thousands of women took to the streets of 200 Italian cities on 13 February calling for “dignity” and greater rights for women, Rebecca Anderson
Teachers and council workers from Tower Hamlets called on their leaders to organise general strike action today in a mass rally after 2,000 trade unionists, joined by the local community marched against cuts. Council workers in purple Unison jackets were joined by school banners, behind which marched school children, parents and lots of teachers carrying […]