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Over the course of a cold February week two
Glasgow campuses emerged at the forefront of the wave of occupations that is
currently engulfing universities across Britain and, in the process, transforming
their political atmospheres. Strathclyde and Glasgow University were both
occupied, with the occupiers protesting about the Israeli onslaught on Gaza and
their universities’ links with arms companies that were complicit in the
offensive.
The Private
Finance Initiative was always bonkers. The idea was that, instead of the
government borrowing to build infrastructural projects, they would hand the job
over to a private consortium to raise the money.This was
always daft. The government was always the safest borrower in town. When did
you last hear of a government going bust? Because its loans are completely
safe, the government can borrow at a cheaper rate than anyone else.
Rail unions held a protest on Wednesday
February 11th outside London Underground head offices against the
first wave of threatened cuts of 1,000 jobs. Workers turned out to demand that
those responsible for running up the massive TfL/LUL deficit of over £2.5
billion be sacked, and not the workers who are being threatened with the sack because
of senior management incompetence.
Yesterday it was David Blunkett and his
privately funded trip to South Africa, which he forgot to own up to. Today it
is Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and her £116,000 expenses claim. According to
the BBC: ‘Ms Smith reportedly claimed £116,000 in expenses for her home in
Redditch, Worcestershire, after telling the Commons that her sister’s home –
where she stays while in London – was her main residence.’ The tax-free
Additional Cost Allowance is worth up to £24,006 a year at present.
Boris Johnson,
Mayor of London, was the man who didn’t let the buses go out during the snow in
London on Monday 2nd February because he thought it was dangerous.
So how did he
expect people to get in to work? Now he’s docking transport staff a day’s pay for
not making it in. The managers who are making the threat are claiming that they
were ‘working from home.’ So they get their money.
David
Blunkett has been rapped over the knuckles by the Parliamentary Commissioner
for Standards. Apparently the former Minister ‘forgot’ to register a trip to
South Africa paid for by a private training company.
Blunkett,
as a former Minister in charge of the Department for Work and pensions, was a
big fan of opening up the administration of the welfare service to the private
sector. No wonder. Sheffield-based firm A4e is bidding for a whole raft of
multi-million pound contracts under New Labour’s misnamed welfare reform
programme. And they find Blunkett’s services well worth purchasing.
French students are out of the classroom and back on
the street. On Thursday, 29th January, students and teaching staff
joined in the national strike that had an estimated 2.5 million French workers
marching in the major cities to prove to President Sarkozy that his provocative
remark in the summer of 2007- ‘These days, when there’s a strike in France,
nobody notices,’ was as wrong as it was rash.
In these recessionary times the fear of a
future with no income amongst redundant workers is persuading some to part with
all their cash in return for future wealth and riches – only to find themselves
bankrupt and maybe homeless. This is a legal form of
ripping you off, with the rise of the some of the worst kind of leeches to prey
on the real victims of the economic downturn. This cost me and by wife £50,000, and hundreds
of other hard working people have lost tens of thousands of pounds to this form
of legalised extortion.
Campaigners to keep Tyne and Wear
Metro, Britain’s best-performing railway, in the public sector, have condemned
the publication of a list of ‘approved bidders’ that brings the network’s
operations a step closer to privatisation. Around 250 RMT members employed by the
Tyne and Wear passenger transport executive Nexus are to be balloted for strike action over the threat
to jobs and conditions posed by moves to privatise the network’s operations.
Last November we
reported how Binyam Mohamed had been tortured with the enthusiastic participation
of the British security services.
Miliband has
slapped a gagging order on the High Court to hush up the incident on the ground
that it endangers national security. It is quite clear is all that is really endangered
is the Miliband’s reputation How can the man possibly posture before the world as
a democratic and defender of civil liberties if this shameful secret comes out?
Over the weekend, from the 9th to the 11th of January, the
International Marxist Tendency organised the 5th Northern European
Winter School in Berlin. The number of comrades and IMT sections
participating was much greater in comparison to previous years. Around
20 to 40 comrades attended the Winter Schools in past years. That was
already a success, but this year we had 150 comrades and sympathisers
from Germany, Poland, Russia, Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia, Switzerland,
Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Britain, France, Italy and Austria coming to
a city with a great revolutionary history and tradition. We also had
guests and speakers from Pakistan, Venezuela, Brazil, Canada and the
United States. The attendance clearly exceeded our expectations and put
a big question mark over the name "Northern European Winter School".
Public transport in London, that kept going throughout the blitz, pathetically
came to a halt on Monday February 2nd because of a few inches of
snow – or rather because of cost-cutting by private firms keener to make a fast
buck than to provide a decent service to Londoners. The whole public transport
system, rail and buses alike, is privately owned and run for profit. Staff did
their best to keep the service going, but they weren’t helped by management
cheese-paring. As far as they are concerned, workers are just a cost that needs
cutting back.