LABOUR MP John McDonnell demanded that the Brown government make "a
choice between democracy or oligarchy" at the weekend. At Saturday’s
Hands Off Venezuela national conference in London, he condemned new
Labour’s ongoing hostility towards Venezuela and pledged to make
solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution an issue that "no MP would be
allowed to dodge."
In last May’s Scottish
Parliament elections the Scottish National Party (SNP) emerged victorious as voters
wilted under increasing attacks and cuts in public services – already threadbare
after the Thatcher Tory years – by the New Labour-Liberal coalition. Socialist Appeal carried
in-depth Marxist analysis at the time when
we predicted an SNP victory and the factors that had made it possible.
Multiculturalism is again under attack. And it’s not just from the BNP, but members of
New Labour. Following the bombings on London in 2005 Ruth
Kelly and David Blunkett called for a ‘British
identity’. Jack Straw asked women Muslims in his constituency
to remove their veils (the niqab), as he feels uncomfortable with
them. The chair of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights has urged for
integration as a way forward, "to stop us from sleep walking into segregation".
The Health Care Commission accused the Kent and Sussex NHS Trust of
"significant failings in infection control" after 90 patients were
known to have died of the super-bug "Clostridium difficile" in three of
its hospitals last year. Kent police and the Health and
Safety Executive are considering the unprecedented action of pressing
manslaughter charges against the Trust.
This weekend supporters of the Venezuelan revolution will gather at the
University of London Union for the Hands off Venezuela National
conference. Speakers from Venezuela will include Guadalupe Rodriguez from the Coordinadora Simon Bolivar and Nelson Rodriguez from the Factory Committee at Inveval. Show your
solidarity with the revolutionary events taking place in Venezuela and
throughout Latin America – book your place today!
We have now had more than a decade of Private Finance Initiative
involvement in the health service. Despite Labour pouring money into
hospitals and health care, more and more health trusts are reporting
deficits. PFI is sucking the NHS dry!
The London Fire Brigade have been trying to impose a change in the
current shift system on its fire-fighters. This has been in the
pipeline for some time and would benefit the LFB management to the
detriment of its workforce.
As winter creeps, in students and staff at Edinburgh schools and nurseries have learned
of the chilling news that their places of learning and work places may be under
threat once again. The Edinburgh Evening News reported on the thirtieth of
October that Edinburgh Council intended to reopen a consultation process that
would look into the future of schools. It also listed seventeen schools and
nurseries that it expected to be earmarked for the process.
Marxists have always maintained that
at some stage the intensity of the class struggle affects even the "armed
bodies of men" of the bourgeois state. Such an example was the police strike in
Britain at the end of the First World War. In the late summer of 1918 the sight
of 12,000 furious Metropolitan constables marching on Whitehall sparked panic
among ruling circles in Britain. Under the leadership of the National Union of
Police and Prison Officers, militantly class-conscious policemen conspired to
overturn their role as the subservient body of the State.
BBC staff are set to ballot for strike over plans to axe up to 2500
jobs. The mood is angry and a big ‘yes’ vote is likely among the 23,000
workers. The three unions involved are Bectu, Unite and the National
Union of Journalists.
In the Guardian on September 4th George Monbiot gave a classic
example of PFI madness. In Coventry officials wanted to refurbish its
two hospitals.This would have cost £30m. They didn’t have £30m, so they had to go for PFI.
After weeks of media speculation the Brown bounce election became the general
election that never happened. Marx explained that the state and politics are like a superstructure that sits on top of society and maintains the appearance of having a certain independence. But in the final analysis, politics, the state and even bouncing Prime Ministers are organically connected to the real world. The prospect of a general election was just too risky.