The Houses of Parliament cleaners made history by staging their first
walk-out on the morning of 20th July. At 10 am the strikers assembled
outside St. Stephens’ entrance together with some MPs, parliamentary
staff and the media to publicise their demands. The strikers were
chanting slogans like “Low Pay, No Way” while some of them were
brandishing placards and mops.
Despite clashing with both the RISE festival and the traditional
Tollpuddle Rally, the main hall at the TUC’s Congress House was largely
full for this year’s AGM and rally of the Labour Representation
Committee (LRC), the main new umbrella grouping for Left activists
inside the Labour Party. Amongst others, a number of the platform
speakers from the trade union movement, including Jeremy Dear (NUJ),
Mark Serwotka (PCS) and Paul Mackney (NATFHE) took time to outline the
ongoing process of attacks against the public sector being carried out
by the government.
Radical changes in consciousness often spring from arbitrary collective
experiences. Last week’s bombings in London are no exception. On the
surface, the story being broadcast and repeated by the journalists,
politicians, and purveyors of “objective information” appears to be
true. But there is more to it than that.
Trotsky’s ‘ABC of Materialist Dialectics’ is a brilliant short explanation of Marxist philosophy. It was written as part of a defence of Marxism against a middle-class revisionist tendency in the American Trotskyist movement in the late 1930s, which attempted to challenge its basic principles. As opposed to pragmatism and empiricism, Trotsky defended dialectical materialism as a richer, fuller, more comprehensive view of society and life in general.
We received messages from the Dadu Sindh branch of the PTUDC and the
American Workers’ International League addressed to the people of
London.
The recurring theme of today’s mass media coverage can be summed up in three words: “Business as usual.” After all, life goes on for most Londoners. This indomitable spirit of the ordinary people is something that Tony Blair and the Establishment are seeking to exploit. One thing is clear: if the imperialist bullying continues, the epidemic of terrorism will continue to spread uncontrollably, a terrible expression of the impasse of the capitalist system on a global scale.
Whoever was responsible for today’s terrorist attacks in Central London
showed no mercy to the innocent victims of their actions. Such
activities are utterly repugnant to anybody who defends the cause of
socialism and the working class. This kind of action serves only to
bolster the forces of reaction. It must be condemned outright.