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The December 20th elections in Spain produced an extremely fragmented congress in which no single party emerged with an overall majority. The regime is at an impasse. But the European capitalists are insisting on a “stable government” in Spain, which they need to push through further austerity and attacks.
The Corbyn movement that began last summer represented the beginning of a political revolution inside the Labour Party. But this transformation is not yet complete. Corbyn has weathered the storm of attacks from the Tory press and the Blairites, emerging stronger in his position as leader; but Labour’s civil war is far from over.
Last week saw the first strike by junior doctors in four decades, as thousands of healthcare professionals took action against the attacks on their terms and conditions. The popularly-supported struggle is set to continue next week, as medics carry on the fight against the Tories and their attempts to dismantle the NHS. Dr Tomasz Pierscionek reports.
The United Nations is often held up as an international instrument for world peace and prosperity. The reality of the UN falls far short of this noble image. In fact, as Daniel Morley explains, the UN is a forum for the horse-trading of the major capitalist powers; a convenient cover for their imperialist designs.
Thousands of families across the UK have had their homes and livelihoods ruined by devastating floods this winter. Such scenes are becoming almost an annually recurring nightmare in Britain. As a result, ordinary people’s anger has rightly fallen on the Tories, whose senseless austerity cuts have exacerbated this disaster.
We now have the greatest housing crisis since the war; but that crisis is welcomed and is being deliberately engineered by the Tories for one simple reason: the greater the crisis, the greater the profits. Pete Gilman of the Islington South Labour Party (personal capacity) looks at the Tories’ attacks on council housing.
Less than a quarter of an hour after opening, the Chinese stock market was closed by an automatic shutdown. This “circuit-breaker” mechanism was imposed by the government only five months ago after equally dramatic losses. This reveals how nervous the Chinese government is of the underlying economic instability.
At last night’s match, Newcastle United fans, in protest against the club’s billionaire owner, Mike Ashley, unfurled a giant banner emblazened with the slogan #SportsDirectShame. The recent revelations about the alleged working practices at high street retailer Sports Direct have shone a light on how big business is exploiting workers in Tory Britain.
Today saw the first of three scheduled actions by junior doctors in England, who are striking over attacks on their terms and conditions being pushed through by the Tory government. We publish here a range of reports from across the country, which highlight the militant mood amongst the doctors, as well as the wide level of support for those fighting to defend the NHS.
After weeks of talks, the government have refused to budge on the question of junior doctors’ contracts, and are ploughing ahead with their attempts to attack the NHS and its staff. As a result, junior doctors across England will be commencing industrial action on Tuesday 12th January. Support the junior doctors in their struggle against Tory cuts.
Enraged student nurses and midwives assembled in London, Manchester and Newcastle last Saturday in protest over Tory plans to axe their NHS bursaries. Joe Attard of the KCL Marxists reports from the London demo of this fightback against Tory austerity, which sets the stage for the walkout by junior doctors, planned for tomorrow.
Amidst all the parties at the start of the New Year, there was no sign of any optimism or hope for the future on the part of the ruling class and its strategists. On the contrary, as Alan Woods discusses, the columns of the bourgeois press are filled with pessimism and foreboding.