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 Brown government has been ruthless in attempting to keep
workers’ wage rises to 2%, causing real pain amongst Britain’s poorest workers.
Their justification was that inflation was only 2% and the “country” could not
afford inflationary pay deals.
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.
With preparations for war in full swing the
small Workers’ International League gathered around Ralph Lee and Ted Grant was
the only voice that stood out defending a real internationalist position. Here
we provide our readers with the lead article of the August 1939 edition of Youth
For Socialism, signed by Ted Grant.
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.
On
Wednesday April 16th our second meeting of students trying to set up a
Socialist Society at the University of Wolverhampton took place.
Karl Marx was a man with a family to look after, and a revolutionary
who no country acknowledged as citizen. A giant thinker of the modern
era who transformed our outlook in philosophy, economics and political
thought, Marx’s revolutionary activity was hobbled by poverty. Steve
Higham chronicles his hardships and achievements a century and a
quarter after his death.
They’re back from the dead. We thought we’d driven a stake
through their rotten hearts in the Labour landslide of 1997. Now they’re 13
points ahead in the polls. They should be history. So why are they making a
comeback? Because New Labour have been rumbled. They said they were being
prudent with the economy. They talked about, ‘no return to boom and bust.’ Now
we can see that they were just lucky. Don’t
let the failure of New Labour be the opportunity for the Tories. Reclaim the
Labour Party. It was set up as our party, as a party for the working class.
Fight the Tories with socialist policies.
We will work an average of the first 70 days of this year just to earn the money needed to pay interest charges on our debts (not to repay the debts). We collectively pay £1.5 billion on interest each year.