April 2008

Every time you think things cannot get any worse for Gordon
Brown, something else comes along. With Labour trailing badly in the polls and
facing what may be yet another round of bad election results come May, even
some normally ‘loyal’ Labour MPs have started to raise the question of getting
rid of Brown as leader. Labour MPs
are rebelling, not because they have suddenly discovered a long-lost socialist
conscience, but because they are staring at the strong possibility that Labour
will lose the next election and they will lose their seats.

Rain, drizzle, hail… nothing could dampen the enthusiasm of
the estimated ten thousand who marched through the centre of London in support
of the industrial action being taken by the teachers’ union the NUT today. This
is the first national strike by teachers for over a generation. They were
joined by members of the public sector union PCS and the lecturers union UCU
who are also taking  24 hour strike
action in what is intended as a unified show of force.

The following is an extract from the financial newsletter
The Daily Reckoning, 22 April. I would not normally cite a single source so extensively.
But it is important for socialists to be aware of the extent to which serious
bourgeois commentators are thinking the unthinkable about economic perspectives.
We are not alone comrades!

As the recession begins to bite deeper with every passing
day, millions of ordinary people face losing their homes, bankers’ profits are
taking a hit, tens of thousands are facing the dole queues, the world is on the
brink of economic recession, yet the super rich have never had it so good,
especially the hedge fund managers.

The news headlines in Scotland today were dominated by the
strike of 1,200 workers at the Grangemouth oil refinery in the west of
Scotland. This is one of only nine refineries in Britain. The plant
processes 210,000 barrels of oil a day. Announcement of the strike has
triggered panic buying of petrol. Management have to start closing the plant
down nearly a week before the walk-out is due.

Last weekend the Socialist Appeal held its national
conference, the proceedings of which revealed important steps forward in the
development of the tendency in both the youth field and the trade unions. The
mood was one of enthusiasm and determination to build even further on the past
year’s successes.

New Socialist Appeal leaflet available

Over 100,000 Members of
the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) are on strike together with up
to half a million other public sector workers including teachers and lecturers.
We are all protesting at the government’s policy to cap public sector pay below
inflation which has resulted in cuts to living standards across the civil
service. 

The immediate cause of the sliding dollar
is not far to seek. It’s the US
deficit with the rest of the world. Last year the USA imported nearly twice as much
as it exported. Their current account deficit stands at 6% of national income.
If a country is spending more than it’s earning, then it has to pay for the
difference.

This is a really valuable book for socialists. Ironically its
strength, as well as its weakness, is that it’s not written from a ‘political’
position. Nick Davies is an established and excellent investigative
reporter. He writes from the point of view of a practitioner defending
professional standards, seeking to explain, within those terms, why so much
British journalism is so wrong.