For the second time in less than a month, Britain has ground to a standstill as a result of snowy weather. Heathrow
airport has virtually ceased operating with over half a million
passengers affected during what is normally the most busy time of the
year with people trying to get home for the holidays.
Following on from last Thursday’s mass demonstration in London of youth
against the increases in college fees, the media has been full of
reports of how the police are now going to hunt down the troublemakers.
It seems this manhunt is being given top priority – murderers, rapists
and robbers can relax, the police are now otherwise engaged!
On Saturday 4th December, over 2000 trade unionists, students, and
activists braved freezing temperatures and marched through the streets
of Norwich as part of the Norfolk Coalition Against the Cuts campaign.
Alan Waters, a Norwich councillor, said it was one of the biggest
protest marches the city had seen for several years. Despite the cold
weather, the atmosphere was hot, with impassioned chants throughout the
march and fiery speeches at the rally.
Around 250 trade union activists and local residents attended the
Peterborough Trade Union Council organised ‘March and Rally for Unity’
on Saturday 11th December, organised in response to the English Defence
League march in Peterborough.
Around noon on Thursday 9th December, students
gathered in various parts of London to march towards the centre of the
city. All over London the students had made a conscious effort to bring
out school students in the morning and the days before with leaflets. At
least half of the protesters were school students probably more. Many
were working class kids from poor areas. Even The Financial Times admitted that some 20-30,000 students participated.
With the bosses media foaming at the mouth over the throwing of a bit
of paint at the flash car being used to drive the Prince of Wales and
his wife to another shindig (no cuts here then), we reproduce an article
written for the Militant Student website just before the marches on Thursday which deals with the role played by the big business-owned press and media.
John Swinney’s launch of the Scottish budget went down like a damp squib
as the Nationalist government attempts to balance its way between the
cuts from Westminster and the increasingly unpopular administration’s
electoral prospects in May. The Finance Minister announced a raft of
cuts, “efficiency savings” and real wage cuts.
Yestersday’s NUS/UCU demo in London against attacks on further education
attracted over 50,000 mainly students, who came in their numbers from
all over the country. Many of these were young people demonstrating for
the first time ever. It will not be the last. As the attacks start to
bite, more and more youth will come into activity and draw the political
conclusions.
On a sunny Saturday afternoon in
Manchester, around 70 people gathered in the Friends’ Meeting House to debate
how best to fight the onslaught of cuts this Tory government is about to
unleash.
As the scale of the cuts start to sink in, we look at the background to this crisis and ask – why has this happened?
NUJ members at the BBC have voted by 70% to reject the latest offer
from the management on pension changes and are intending to take action
by striking for 48 hours on 5 and 6 November and again on 15 and 16
November with further dates to be named in the coming days. Here is the
text of an appeal now being circulated.
Since the days of the Thatcher government, public sector workers have
had to live with the repeatedly stated ‘fact’ that the private sector is
supposed to be better, more efficient and cheaper at providing services
than the public one. This was the stated logic behind decades of
privatisation and outsourcing.