Britain

The economic and financial crisis has dominated the whole year. Speculation and uncertainty in the US led to the price of oil hitting
$100 a barrel by January 2nd, followed shortly after by the first stock
market crash of the year amid fears of a global recession caused by
last year’s crisis in the sub-prime mortgage market. The world has entered perhaps the most disturbed period in the whole of human history.

The recent much
publicised arrest of Tory immigration spokesman Damian Green

has led to acres of newsprint
being used up by normally establishment papers in
defence of Mr Green and the tradition of whistleblowing.However are we not seeing double standards
here? When it is a right wing MP leaking stuff about immigration then it is all
OK, but when it is a trade unionist revealing management lies being perpetrated
in the public sector or in government then it is quite a different story.

For us, another world is not only possible but also
necessary. However, to achieve all this, to get our ideas out to workers,
students, homeworkers, unemployed and all those who find capitalism to
be lacking, we need your support. At this festive (although not so
festive for the thousands now facing losing their job or having a cut
in salary) it is traditional to make a special appeal for donations to
help build our resources.

Single parents and those on incapacity benefits are due to
suffer as a result of government rule changes. From now they will be
transferred from Income Support to Job Seeker’s Allowance. They will have to
show they are ‘genuinely seeking work.’ If not, their benefits could be cut by
up to 40%. This is workfare on the way.

What a difference a few months make! In the summer Gordon
Brown was on the ropes. Over the past couple of months he has picked up a
thoroughly undeserved reputation as the ‘saviour of the world economy.’ Brown has embraced Keynesian policies wholeheartedly,
without explaining his U-turn. His solution to our economic ills is to hurl
money at them. ‘Never apologise, never explain’, seems to be his motto. So what
is making Brown look good? The Tories, that’s what.

As our editorial last month pointed out,
what killed the citizens of Pompeii was not the pyrotechnics of the explosion
of Mount Vesuvius, but the resulting ash that choked the people. It is
possible, though not inevitable, that we have seen the worst of the banking
collapse. But the results are destroying jobs all over Britain.

Buried on page 11 of the Guardian on 1st
November is an article, extremely enlightening in its simplicity, reporting the
‘news’ that during office Blair was only too happy to do Rupert Murdoch’s bidding.
According to Lance Price, former Downing Street
spin doctor, Murdoch was ‘one of the four most influential people in the
administration’. Never mind that he was totally unelected, not actually a part
of any ‘administration’, or that he is a US citizen whose company (News Corp.)
pays no net tax.

"ANDREA: Unhappy the land that has no heroes!"
"GALILEO: No, unhappy the land that needs heroes."
Bertolt Brecht (The Life of Galileo)

He is the
Hero of the Hour, the man who single-handedly has saved the world financial
system from meltdown. When all around were panicking and in despair, here was a
man who kept his head and, emanating a sense of absolute calm akin to the
Buddhist Nirvana, issued the command that re-established the Order of the
Universe. Nothing remotely similar has been seen since that far-off time just
before the Big Bang when the Almighty pronounced the immortal words: Let there
be Light. And there was Light. And God saw the Light, that it was good.

A vote at the Employment and Social Affairs
Committee of the European Parliament could signal an end to the British opt-out
from the Working Time Directive. Of particular significance was the unanimous
vote of British Labour MEPs to kill it. This is in sharp contrast to the
determination of New Labour in Whitehall to keep the opt-out – at the expense
of the British working class. The resoluteness of our MEPs, in behaving like
real Labour representatives, has rightly been described as an “embarrassment”
to the UK government.

Come and hear Jesus Pino from the
Revolutionary Front of Steel Workers (SIDOR). He is speaking at the Hands Off
Venezuela National Conference in London
in less than two week’s time. He will speak about the struggle to nationalise
the steel industry and the fight for workers’ control in Venezuela. The
nationalisation of SIDOR earlier this year was a direct outcome of a militant
struggle by the steel workers themselves. This shows the direction that the
Venezuelan Revolution is taking and highlights the need to complete the tasks
of expropriating the Oligarchy.