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On the morning of Saturday 28th August Bradford had become a ghost
town. Pubs, shops and cafes were boarded up and the Saturday shoppers
stayed away. Some landlords had gone one further by piling up all their
beer garden tables and chairs against the doors to keep the trouble
out. The EDL were in town to “peacefully protest” against the supposed
takeover by radical Islam.
The cuts outlined in the 2010 emergency budget will come as a
hammer-blow to all workers. However, it is working class women –
especially the low paid and single parents – who will be amongst the
hardest hit. For them, the changes to Child Tax Credits and benefits
will be a particularly bitter pill to swallow.
Socialist Appeal Editorial: The Labour leadership election contest will
be ending in September as the ballot papers finally go out. It could
have been an opportunity to discuss a balance-sheet of the right-wing
control of the party under New Labour and an opportunity to discuss a
socialist programme in face of the worst capitalist crisis since the
1930s. However, the contest has left most people cold.
As
the strike by more than a million public sector workers in South Africa
enters its second week, the government has launched an all out attack
against the unions using all powers at its disposal, including the
courts, the police, the Army and the media. The unions have replied by
threatening solidarity action which could involve the police and the
army.
China has been making news due to its powerful
economic growth. The other side of this story, however, is to be found
in the terrible conditions and low pay that many of its workers have to
suffer. Here is one example of a milkman.
The Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign
has launched Revolutionary Flood Relief and Protest Committees across
Pakistan, especially in the intensely affected areas, to conduct an
efficient and effective rescue and relief effort. Fifty seven camps from
this campaign have been set up in various regions and the PTUDC is appealing for
help.
We reproduce here a statement from the LRC on the campaign to decide who will be the next leader of the Labour Party.
Journalists usually refer to August as the silly season. It
is in that context that we have the latest madcap idea to come from the Con-Dem
coalition. According to plans leaked by the Guardian newspaper, council housing
tenancies will no longer be ‘for life.’
On Thursday, July 22, Venezuelan
president Chávez decided to put the
border with Colombia on maximum military alert, after Colombian
president Alvaro Uribe made accusations that Venezuela was harbouring
FARC guerrillas and demanded an “international commission of enquiry”.
When David Cameron announced "The Big Society" (a name nicked from the
American President LBJ who used it in the ’60s) during the election,
most people laughed and assumed that would be the last we would hear of
it. Tory spokespeople said that they had no idea what it meant and one
Tory MP described it as "Bollocks." Indeed. However, now safely inside
Number 10, Cameron has brought up it up again.
Much is said in the news about the disastrous situation that now
exists in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the Deepwater Horizon
explosion. An ecological disaster of gigantic proportions has been
created by the profit motive, which is what drives the BP executives.
However, were the company to be thoroughly unionised, with workers’
representatives controlling every level of safety, this disaster could
have been averted.
The FIAT plant at Pomigliano d’Arco
(Naples) has become the centre of attention for all militant trade
unionists in Italy. The bosses are trying to implement new draconian
work conditions and in the process have used all kinds of bullying
methods. But they can push too far and the workers are reaching the
limit and preparing to fight back.