The latest news and analysis from The Communist, alongside reports of our activity. For Marxist theory and history, click here.
Following on from the rolling regional strikes last year, today – Wednesday 26th March – saw thousands of schools across England and Wales close as members of Britain’s largest teaching union, the National Union of Teachers (NUT), took strike action in defence of wages, pensions, and conditions.
The annual conference of the National Union of Students is being held in couple of weeks time in April. On the agenda for this year’s conference are amendments and motions submitted by members of the Marxist Student Federation. Marxist students from UCL, Sheffield and Cambridge universities will be attending the NUS conference as delegates from their universities, elected on a fighting programme of socialist policies for the NUS.
On Friday 21st March, around 60 students attended a ‘Justice for Mark Duggan’ meeting at Kings College London, in which his aunt – Carol Duggan – spoke about the blatant lies of the corrupt police and the capitalist press. KCL Marxists report on the meeting and the Mark Duggan case, which has exposed the injustices of the bourgeois state.
The Tory-led Coalition wants all hospitals to become Foundation Trusts by 2014; but smaller hospitals will face the threat of merger and privatisation. Darrall Cozens of the Coventry TUC (personal capacity) looks at the case of George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton and the campaign against potential privatisation of this hospital.
In the last week, Crimea has officially become part of the Russian Federation. The western powers, despite a series of veiled threats, have been able to do nothing to stop this process. Francesco Merli examines the latest developments in Russia and Ukraine, which expose the declining influence of US imperialism and its European allies.
We republish here an article by Gerry Ruddy, originally written for the Red Plough, which looks at the politics of Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein, who have accepted the capitalist system and ignored the class question in relation to the north of Ireland.
We publish here the third and final part of a discussion document, written by the editorial board of Socialist Appeal, which outlines the economic and political perspectives for Britain. In this final part, the document analyses the political developments taking place within the Labour Party and the Tories, as well as looking forward to the 2015 General Election and the upcoming referendum on Scottish indepence.
This year’s budget from George Osborne has been described as the most typical Tory budget he has yet given. Whether that is correct is open to debate; but what is true is that it has many of the features of previous Tory budgets in a pre-election year: huge handouts to the rich, lots of shiny baubles for wavering Tory voters, and nothing for the poor.
Earlier this year, Oxfam reported that the wealth of 85 of the world’s billionaires was equivalent to that held collectively by half the world’s population – around 3.5 billion people against just 85. Now Oxfam have produced a further report concentrating on the UK. What it has to say will shock and anger people but will come as no surprise.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) recently released a report that came up with a novel idea: convince the world population to eat insects in order to avert mass hunger. In reality it is already possible to feed everyone without the need to eat bugs. What stands in the way is the “market”, i.e. capitalism.
On 19th-21st March, Accord, the union organising the largest number of workers at Lloyds Banking Group, will hold its biennial conference. The main subject of debate will be Lloyds’ decision to press ahead with its attack on the Defined Benefit Scheme, introducing a 0% cap on pensions – and, importantly, what the response of the union should be to this attack.
Stan Pearce, a militant miner and dedicated Marxist, sadly passed away last week at the age of 81. We publish here two tributes from Socialist Appeal supporters – Bob Stothard from Washington and John Dunn of Justice for Mineworkers – who knew and admired Stan as an inspirational comrade.