This year’s local election results have delivered a huge no-confidence
vote to the Coalition parties. On Thursday night, the Tories were
accused of ‘ramping up’ election predictions for Labour in the hope that
they would not win that figure and the government could then claim that
things were not that bad after all. In fact, the Tory prediction was
wrong – Labour did far better!
Three facts stand out from the 2012 local election results in Coventry:
the Labour Party made huge gains; the last remaining Socialist Party
councillor, Dave Nellist, lost his seat to Labour and the voting turnout
was very low at 26.43%.
The publication of this year’s Sunday Times Rich List 2012
has revealed a trend which has been going on for many years now – the rich are
just getting richer.
Crisis has returned with a vengeance. Britain is now officially back in
recession following two quarters of economic contraction, something
which will come as no surprise to many workers on the breadline. The
Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the British economy contracted
by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2012, which follows a 0.3% decline in
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the final three months of 2011.
The weekend of April 14th and 15th saw
the biggest gathering of the supporters of Socialist Appeal and the
Marxist Tendency in 20 years. This year’s conference discussed the World
situation and the ongoing global capitalist crisis, which is developing
into the deepest in the history of capitalism. The perspectives for
Britain were discussed, with special reference to the question of a
referendum on Scottish independence.
The government has been trying to take some quiet comfort from the new unemployment figures announced today. Yet they hide some damning facts.
On April 12th, around 70 people
gathered at a Hands Off Venezuela meeting at Bolivar Hall in London to
commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the defeat of the
counter-revolutionary coup against Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela.
The meeting served as the premiere of ‘Cuarto Poder’, a documentary
summarising the negative portrayal of the President Chavez in the
Spanish media and the reasons for this negative bias.
Marking the 20th anniversary of the launching of Socialist Appeal, over
100 delegates and visitors assembled in London at what was the largest
Socialist Appeal conference held to date. Detailed discussions were held on
the world situation and the latest perspectives for Britain. Reports
were presented on the Sparks dispute, the work in the universities, the
fight for public sector pensions and the way forward for the Labour
Party and the unions. The tremendous mood of the conference was
reflected in the magnificent collection for the Fighting Fund where
nearly £5,000 was raised – a record!.
As part of its austerity programme the
Tory-LibDem coalition is planning to cut police officers’ wages and
making it easier to sack them. There are to be wage cuts, job losses and
more stringent requirements to enter the police force.
Hands
Off Venezuela on April 12 is hosting at Bolivar Hall the London
premiere of "Cuarto Poder" (the Fourth Power) a new documentary
examining the role of media, media monopoly and ownership, media
manipulation and related issues with special reference to the media
coverage of events in Venezuela. John McDonnell MP and Alan Woods will
be speaking at the event
George
Galloway’s remarkable victory in the recent Bradford West by-election
has again thrown the spotlight on the Labour Party’s lamentable failure to
provide an opposition to the Tories and the Coalition government’s vicious
attacks on the working class.
The
remarkable victory of George Galloway in the Bradford West by-election has sent
a massive cannon ball flying across the boughs of the Labour leadership. At a time of huge
unpopularity of the Coalition government, Labour should have romped home in
this traditional heartland. To their astonishment, Labour was driven into
second place behind George Galloway, who scored a massive 36.59% swing from
Labour to Respect.