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The decision to place Railtrack plc, the privatised rail company responsible for the upkeep of the system’s infrastructure, into administration last weekend would normally have been the main item on the national news. However The beginning of the US/UK bombing raids of Afghanistan conveniently put paid to that. The decision amounts to a recognition that privatisation has failed (something all but the New Labour government had already realised a long time ago) but still falls shot of renationalisation a taboo word for Tony Blair and his government.

There have been a lot of disasters on the railways in Britain. But the
real disaster has been rail privatisation itself. There was a lot of rhetoric from the Tories
about the ‘dynamism and efficiency’ private capitalism would bring, but experience has
shown that the only people to benefit from rail privatisation have been the profiteers, not
the general public that has to use the railways. So what is the alternative?

Editorial note: The following is a full version of the shorter article we
published on 8 June on the British election.

Labour has won the elections with a majority of 167 seats at Westminster,
only
slightly down on last time when they won a landslide majority of
179 seats. On the face of it, it is an outstanding triumph for Tony
Blair. But these results do not adequately express the contradictory
nature of the mood in British society. The mood of the masses is
sceptical. The working class is disappointed and frustrated with
New Labour. Despite Labour’s landslide victory, the underlying
mood is extremely volatile.

On 7th June, the people of Britain will go to the polls to elect the next government. According
to all the polls Labour is set to gain a hefty majority over the Conservatives. The polls
show that Labour is now leading the Tories by a massive 28 points. Yet the election
campaign has been as dead as a Dodo, and the great majority show little interest and less
enthusiasm for either New Labour or the Tories. The general election turnout is likely to be
low – some have even predicted the lowest for over 100 years. The reason for this alleged
"voter apathy" is not hard to find.

In a matter of days a magnificent and largely spontaneous
movement of
truck drivers, farmers and cabbies has brought large parts of the
country
to a virtual standstill. This movement represents the biggest
national
unofficial strike action seen in Britain for decades. The ruling class
are
quaking in their boots.

A first look at the electoral disaster for the Labour Party in the
council elections and
Ken Livingstone’s victory in the London Mayoral contest.

We received a letter from Hong Kong in reply to our articles on GM foods.

Leon Trotsky spent the last decade of his life in a struggle to keep alive the genuine
method of Marxism in all fields. While on all sides Marxism was being distorted and
misused both by the Stalinists and the Social Democracy to justify their own betrayal of
the working class movement, Trotsky consistently put forward a revolutionary position on
all problems facing the workers.
One of the immediate dangers facing the international working class was the rise of
fascism and therefore this new phenomenon clearly needed to be understood.

This pamphlet is written by active RMT
and ASLEF union members who support the ideas of Socialist
Appeal. It describes the conditions facing rail workers in Britain
after years of privatisation
and provides a fighting alternative.

In August 1931 the Labour prime minister, Ramsay
MacDonald, crossed the floor of the
Commons with a handful of supporters to join with the
Tories and Liberals in forming a
National Government. This event was considered one of the
greatest betrayals in the
history of the Labour Party. More than sixty-five years later,
voices have once again been
raised about the need for a radical realignment of British
politics and the formation of
some kind of coalition. "If Blair is the Ramsay
MacDonald of the Nineties,"
warns the Observer, "he could be getting his National
Government in early as
well." (24/9/95). Tony Benn has also recently drawn
parallells between today and the
period of 1929-31 and the formation of the National
Government.