Britain

You
couldn’t make it up! About two years ago the banks in Britain, the USA and all over the world began to
go bust. It started over here with Northern Rock and culminated in the USA with the
collapse of the giant Lehman Brothers, the biggest corporate bankruptcy in
history. The problem for governments was that the banks were threatening to
take whole chunks of the capitalist system over the precipice with them. The
banking collapse and the ‘credit crunch’ were the triggers for a general crisis
of capitalism.

Cuts, cuts and even more cuts. This is the
message now being shouted by the leaderships of the Tories, the
Liberal-Democrats and – disgracefully – Labour. Indeed they are all trying to
outdo each other in presenting ever more severe programmes of public spending
cutbacks as part of what has been called a ‘race to the bottom’ on the part of
the three parties.

This Thursday 17th Sept will see a Day Of Action taking place in
support of the sacked Vestas workers. Meetings and rallies will be
taking place all around the country. 600 jobs have been lost at the Vestas
plant on the Isle Of Wight. Workers from the closed factory were at the
TUC in Liverpool this week and got a great reception. The demand
remains: nationalise the factory, keep the jobs.

In Will Hay’s classic farce ‘Oh, Mr Porter!’ the new stationmaster arrives to
be greeted at Buggleskelly ticket office with the words “Next train gone.” For thousands
of travelers on the modern day farce of London Midland network last Sunday it was a case of “No
trains coming.”

Hard on the heels of Donald Trump’s Aberdeen golf complex for
the rich and famous comes an even more exclusive playground, not for the rich,
poor things, but for the super-rich! According to a report in the Scotsman newspaper: ‘The Dall
Estate, on the shores of Loch Rannoch, is set to become a "mini
Monaco" in the heart of the Scottish countryside – a home from home for
billionaires, Russian oligarchs, heads of state, the international glitterati
and Hollywood and sporting superstars.’

Last Saturday, activists from around the country assembled in the Derbyshire town of Codner to protest at the presence in the area of the BNPs "Hate Fest." Here are two reports by supporters of Socialist Appeal who attended the protest.

During the summer much was made of Tory
leader David Cameron’s unfortunate use of the ‘T’ word during a radio
interview. One cartoonist later commentated that he would have got into more
trouble with the Tory hierarchy had he used a different four-letter word,
‘cuts.’ Cameron has gone out of his way not to give the impression that the
Tories will bring in massive public sector cuts should they win the next
general election.  Indeed he has gone on
record as saying that the budgets for overseas aid and – more to the point –
the health service will be protected. Can we believe him? We think not.

Although the spin doctors have been hard at work – for them anyway – trying to convince people that the ‘green shoots’ of recovery are starting to appear, the reality is still grim for the UK economy.Company liquidations have gone up by 40% this year according to the Insolvency Service.

Socialist Appeal has published a new pamphlet outlining what we stand for. It explains the case for socialism and reviews the programme we believe the labour movement should adopt – and why.

A meeting of concerned educators and carers worried by the vague
proposals to reorganise the management of Doncaster’s Pupil Referral
Unit (PRU) was held on July 9th . The proposal to transfer all
Education Outside Schools (EOS) to a School Based Company (SBC) is being dressed up in an attempt to portray a simple cost cutting exercise, with a market driven ethos as a model to provide a better management system for learners who struggle to cope with mainstream education.

Report from a public meeting held by Edinburgh supporters of Socialist Appeal on the ongoing economic crisis effecting millions of workers and poor people across the globe. Speaking were Fred Weston, editor of the website In Defence of Marxism, and Bayo Ogunrufta of the Nigerian Marxists Campaign for a Workers Alternative.

The way that a society treats its old, its sick, its children and
vulnerable people is a barometer of the health of that society as a whole. It
is therefore no wonder that the death of Baby P. had such an effect on the
public consciousness. Why is it then that in 21^st Century in Britain
a so called advanced country, that circumstances like this can develop?