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It will go down in the annals of the labour movement as one of the
greatest victories that has ever been achieved in Britain. Forty years
ago to the day, when the NUM was picketing the Saltley Coke works in
Birmingham, some 30 to 40,000 engineering workers struck in support
across the city.
Saturday February 11 marks the one year
anniversary of the fall of Mubarak. Summer, Autumn and Winter have
passed since the beginning of the “Arab spring”, and the Egyptian masses
are still taking to the streets. Despite all that has happened over the
past 12 months, nothing has fundamentally changed for the majority of
ordinary Egyptians. There have been a series of victories and defeats
for the workers and youth of Egypt, but now, with the anniversary of the
Revolution, the movement is entering a new phase.
For many of us older comrades who were
politically active in the Labour Party Young Socialists in Coventry in
the late 1960s and 1970s, Fernandez Montes was the living embodiment of
the Spanish Civil War.
In November of 2011 record-breaking
statistics for youth unemployment were splashed across headlines in the
UK, with 21% of all 16 to 24-year-olds being unemployed, out of
education or training. In December the records were broken all over
again with youth unemployment reaching 1.027 million– equating to 22% of
all 16 to 24-year-olds.
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists: A new two-handed version of Stephen Lowe’s original
adaptation of Robert Tressell’s book.
ON TOUR THROUGHOUT 2012 – read on for more info
IRELAND: The nineteenth century was
proving to be another age of poverty, oppression and starvation for the
mostly Catholic tenant farmers. They were still at the mercy of the
landlords who charged increasingly exorbitant rents and would not
hesitate to evict any family who could not pay. Keeping his tenancy was a
matter of life or death to the farmer and his family.
When things get bad the ruling class has been known – if all else fails –
to turn on its own "for the greater good." With all the anger
continuing to boil up over the cuts and the role of the bankers, the
government decided it was time for a sacrificial lamb to come forward.
So this week "Fred the Shred" – Fred Goodwin – got his knighthood taken
away from him. The former head of RBS was told that he was being
punished for helping to bring down the world financial markets.
One year after the revolutionary
overthrow of Ben Ali, Tunisia faces a wave of strikes, regional
uprisings, sit-ins and protests of all sorts. For hundreds of thousands
of Tunisian workers and youth who bravely defied the bullets of the
dictatorship to get jobs and dignity nothing has fundamentally changed.
It is not ruled out that if the
democratic facade of imperialism creates a crisis that threatens to
unravel the economic system, the imperialist bosses would not hesitate
to revert back to military dictatorship.
Over the last year Greece has rarely
been out of the news across Europe. With headlines such as “Greek
tragedy”, “Corruption in every corner” and “Greece’s lazy workers”, the
capitalist media have painted the Greek people as first amongst the
so-called P.I.G.I.’S. (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Ireland and Spain) of
Europe. It’s one-time international image as a sunny, friendly place has
been replaced by one of greed, corruption and chaos. This is part of
the ruling class campaign to blame the crisis of capitalism on the Greek
people, and tells us nothing of the hardships they have to endure
The Syrian revolution has entered a
higher stage in the last few weeks. The number and size of
demonstrations have reach record numbers, towns are falling under the
control of defecting soldiers- including areas surrounding the
capital of Damascus and embryonic forms of popular power are appearing in the form of popular councils.
William of Orange allied himself to
two popes: Pope Innocent XI (1676/89) and Pope Alexander VIII (1689/91).
These two Popes were more than happy to support William III in his
fight against the Catholic James II, and he was equally happy to support
them in their war against France’s Louis XIV.