30 years on from the original Band Aid single, which promised to raise money to feed the world, Bono and Bob Geldof are back with another celebrity-endorsed single, this time aimed at the Ebola crisis in West Africa. Ed Taylor looks at this latest charity single and asks: do these millionaire musicians really know who’s to blame for famine and disease?
According to recent research, almost a third of university graduate interns are being forced to work without pay, as a means of ‘getting their foot in the door’ of their respective careers. These latest figures demonstrate the myth of social mobility that is peddled by the apologists of capitalism.
A crisis has taken hold of the political establishment in Britain in recent months. Its latest episode was played out last week in the Rochester and Strood by-election, where the UK Independence Party emerged to claim their second parliamentary seat at the expense of the ruling Conservative Party. Ben Peck looks at the political fragmentation of the British establishment.
On Wednesday 19th November, thousands of students took to the streets in London to protest extortionate tuition fee rises, to demand free education for students in the UK, and to show solidarity with students everywhere who want a fairer society. Ed Rosier of the Manchester Marxists reports on the latest expression of the radicalisation amongst the youth.
Bourgeois critics are lining up to insult, patronise and demonise Russell Brand for daring to demand an alternative to the current system. This says a lot about the Establishment’s fear of anyone who dares to mention the word “revolution”. Ben Gliniecki reviews Brand’s book Revolution and asks: how can we fight for a real change in society?
In a recording from this year’s International Marxist Tendency winter school in London, Fred Weston – editor of www.marxist.com – discusses the global crisis of capitalism and analyses the mass movements breaking out across the world, from Burkina Faso to Italy. What is the task of the Marxists in such a period?
“Six years on from the financial crash that brought the world to its knees, red warning lights are once again flashing on the dashboard of the global economy.” Such ominous statements may sound familiar to our regular readers. However, these words are not those of a Marxist, but of the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, expressing his deep concerns about the state of the world economy.
It is now seven weeks since the police attacked students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college and then kidnapped 43 of the survivors and handed them over to a drug cartel. The brutal incident in the town of Iguala, Guerrero, acted as the proverbial last straw, opening up a wave of mass protests which continues to grow and spread.
Today, November 19th, there is a demonstration by students in central London for free education. Marxist students wholeheartedly support this demonstration and will be participating in it energetically. The NUS leadership has failed, however, once again, to live up to its task of taking the side of the students.
Solidarity with the Anti-fascist Resistance in Ukraine (SARU) held a supporters’ meeting on the 11th of November at the Marx Memorial Library in Clerkenwell, London. A packed room heard a series of speakers discuss the current situation in Ukraine and the way forward for the campaign.
More than a month after the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black youth from Ferguson, USA, the police officer who shot him multiple times remains free and safely in hiding. Michael Brown’s killing was “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” opening up a new stage in the changing consciousness of young Americans.
We live in turbulent times. Across Europe, the old parties of the social democracy are facing perhaps the deepest set of crises in their history. Britain has not been immune to this. Following the independence referendum and a collapse in its support, and with a leadership election on the horizon, Scottish Labour is facing a crisis of its own.