Britain

With the European elections looming, visit any main town across the
length and breadth of the country during the day and you will be sure
to find BNP activists in smart suits handing out glossy leaflets in the
High Street and their message of "Yes to Putting British People First"
– a message of course earlier put out by Gordon Brown, a message that
has done much to hinder the campaign against the racist BNP.

As the economic crisis deepens across the world the ruling class throughout Europe is launching a fresh offensive against education as it tries to squeeze working class students for as much as they’ve got. In April, education ministers from all over Europe met in Prague to announce the success the of the Bologna process: a Europe wide plan to further open up public education to the pillaging forces of the market.

The furore about MPs
claiming outrageous expenses and resorting to outright fiddling gets
worse by the day. Labour, as the Party in
power for the past twelve years presiding over this scandal, is
facing electoral meltdown. Naturally the Labour ranks are panicking.
Labour appears doomed at the local and European elections on June
4th,
and in the general election over the next year. The situation could
still be turned around but the unions and rank and file will have
to take decisive action and take the Parliamentary Labour Party by
the scruff of the neck.

Redundancies announced at Worcester Technology
College will fall heavily
on lecturing and support staff who provide for the needs of some of the more
disadvantaged students in the college. Worcester College of Technology staff
are shocked at the news that 30 jobs are to be axed in the new academic year.

With the announcement that Michael Martin, The Speaker of the House of Commons, is to stand down in June, the MPs Expenses scandal has claimed its most high profile victim. Rob Sewell looks at this developing political crisis in Britain and explains the real background to it.

We received this piece from a young supporter of Socialist Appeal. The article shows how many young people are beginning to think about the ugly reality behind the shops they buy their clothes and accessories from: sweat-shops, child labour and vicious exploitation of the workers that produce these commodities. Young people, increasingly aware of these horrors, want to do something to show solidarity with the workers. This instinctive internationalism we welcome wholeheartedly.

The MPs expenses scandal – based on nicked data ‘obtained’ by the Daily Torygraph has become the talking point of the day. Around the country people are furious that these same publicly paid MPs, who tell us all to cut back and grandly complain about every minor infringement of benefit claims, have taken expense claim fiddling to a level undreamt off by most of us – and it’s not just a few ‘bad eggs’ either. Nearly all of them seem to be at it! Mick Brooks now takes a light look at this scandal and makes a few biting points at their – for once – expense.

On the day that the Pakistani army continued to be bogged down in a ferocious battle against the Taliban inside its own borders and yet another British soldier was killed in Afghanistan, the one hundred and fifty third since 2001, it is evident that the British military is engaged in a war it cannot win. Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth has outlined desperate measures which entail a wholesale reform of the Territorial Army. Gone forever will be the image of a glorified Dad’s Army as the TA is to be integrated with the rest of the army and better prepared for wars abroad.

Editorial.The events around the G20 demonstrations have underlined the fact that, when working people stand up against capitalism, sooner or later we come slap up against the capitalist state. The police were talking up the prospects of violence well before the G20 began. Ian Tomlinson was killed by riot police on his way home. He wasn’t even part of the demonstration against the G20, just a worker going about his business. Complaints and evidence about heavy-handed and brutish policing are pouring in. Des Heemskerk led a group of workers in Basildon, concerned only about protecting their jobs, to occupy their factory – Visteon. They came up against police in full riot gear with slavering dogs on hand.