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Supermarkets can sell cheaper than small independent shops
because they can buy cheaper. They use their bullying power over small farmers
and other producers. The Competition Commission has been deliberating for
eighteen months. They have decided that the four big supermarket chains
(Sainsbury’s, Tesco, ASDA and Morrisons) that sell three quarters of all food
in the country offer us all plenty of ‘choice’.
Tommy Sheridan
is facing yet another fight in his colourful career as Scotland’s best known
socialist. He has been arrested on suspicion of perjury arising from his widely
publicised defamation case against the News of the World for which he was
awarded £200,000 damages.
Towards the end of last year we witnessed the collapse of another
attempt to create a party to the left of Labour. The RESPECT party,
which was founded in 2004, was the latest effort to establish an
electoral alternative to Labour. It succeeded in winning an MP, George
Galloway, as well as a few dozen councillors up and down the country. However, the
whole project soon went pear-shaped.
BBC News: A male lawyer can expect to live over seven years longer than the man who empties his wasterpaper bin, Office for National Statistics figures suggest. The rich are getting richer and can effectively ‘buy’ longer lives through more regular holidays and leisure activities. The very nature of people’s work, and not just the lifestyle it affords them, can have an impact on longevity. “Monotonous jobs where people have little control over what they can do can be much more stressful than more high-powered jobs, where people have much more freedom,” said Professor Dorling. “And that may ultimately take […]
In Britain and
internationally supermarket chains have come to dominate the food distribution
market. The tendency to monopolisation is evident. But with it go many
practices that literally endanger our health, and with it also working
conditions, wages, the environment and so on. The only answer is to take them
over, remove the profit motive and run them in the interests of all working
people.
A single mother in Keighley is being evicted
from her residence with two months notice. The ‘owner’ of the property does not
claim any fault on the part of the worker; calling her an exemplary tenant.
The move is sound business; house prices may fall so it would be better to cash
in now and let someone else (e.g. someone poorer) take the loss. Yet this woman
is a nurse suffering attacks at work by privatisations, and a mother of four
with no other housing options.
The murder of Benazir Bhutto has led to an explosion of popular anger. Pakistan is convulsed by rioting and mass protests. Society has been stirred up to the depths. Raw human emotion has spilled over onto the streets of every city, town and village. The army and police are powerless to halt the tide of indignation. The government is shaken to the core.
The following leaflet of the Pakistani comrades of The Struggle was distributed on a grand scale in which they demand an end of the cruel capitalist system, its cruel institutions, imperialist hegemony, and religious terrorism.
Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a suicide bomb attack. The leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had just addressed a rally of PPP supporters in the town of Rawalpindi when the attack took place. First reports talked of at least 100 killed in the attack, but more recent news put the figure at 20. This murderous onslaught on the PPP came in the middle of an election campaign where, after years of military dictatorship, the masses were striving for a change.
Today’s cold-blooded assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi has once again thrown Pakistan into political turmoil, less than two weeks before national elections. Thirty more people have died and 40 injured in the bomb blast after the assassin blew himself up. Millions of supporters of the Pakistan Peoples Party are in a state of shock, disbelief and grief. But they are also angered by this murderous act by the forces of black counter-revolution.
After the serious physical threats against PPP activists in
Karachi, John McDonnell MP has issued this statement, condemning the attack and
warning that if they continue the issue will be taken up in the British and
world labour movement.
Christmas is very close and all the kids are eager in anticipation of what
Santa will bring them this year for being good. But who actually is that kind, old man with a bag full of nice gifts for
the children called Father Christmas or Santa Claus?