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The announcement by English football’s ruling elite, the FA
Premier League, that they intend introducing an extra round of fixtures to be
played in venues around the world over one single weekend should come as no
surprise to anyone. Since its formation 15 years ago as a replacement for the
old First Division, the FA Premier League has sought to increase the
profitability of its product (their term not mine) out of all proportion – and
at our expense.
On Tuesday 5th February the Manchester Hands of
Venezuela held a successful meeting with over 60 people attending. The meeting
was held jointly with the Green Party of Manchester to raise awareness of Venezuela,
discuss the revolutionary situation and look at changes and developments in the
country and more widely in South America as a whole.
In a speech on ‘liberty’ at the University of Westminster, Gordon Brown
outlined his vision for ‘Britishness’. Brown is, of course, a Scot.
Listing the achievements of so-called ‘British liberty’ from Magna
Carta to the Reform Act of 1832, he announced a debate on what it means
to be British. Brown’s vision, however, amounts to nothing more than
reactionary politics dressed in liberal-radical language.
New Labour
should hang their heads in shame in their ongoing programme of cuts, closures and job losses
in the public sector. Margaret Thatcher’s band of robbers would be proud of their accomplishments and
their policies sit so easily within a Tory ideology that it is no wonder the Tories don’t look
like an opposition. They don’t need to. They have been in power in the guise of New Labour for over 11
years.
This is a letter submitted to the US section of the International Marxist Tendency , the Workers International League. In this letter, Roberto Carlos depicts his experience working in a
movie theater and the problems young workers have to put up with on a
regular basis.
More than 13,000 tonnes of food have been seized in the last two weeks
in Venezuela as part of the Food Sovereignty Plan launched in order to
fight speculation, hoarding and sabotage in the food distribution
chain. The main lesson is that food soverignty is not compatible with
capitalism.
Until recently
Kenya
was held up as a glowing example of the success of the free market
economy. It was supposed to be a shining example of democracy, a
beacon of hope for what Europeans used to call "the dark continent."
Now all these dreams lay in ashes. In recent weeks Kenya has been
torn asunder by a wave of ethnic and tribal violence that has claimed
nearly a
thousand lives.
The largest human migration
in the world gets under way every Chinese
New Year, as China’s 120
million strong army of migrant workers make
their annual trip home. This
year heavy snows led to railways and
roads being overburdened and
transport bottlenecks wreaked sudden
nationwide chaos.
Caroline Flint, the new
Housing Minister has proposed that new tenants on council estates will have to
sign up to "actively seek work" as a condition of their tenancy. So now it’s a
case of "no dog, no cat, no loud music, keep the place spick and span and you
must get a job". There is something
disturbingly familiar about this rubbish: it’s like the old Victorian notion of the deserving and
undeserving poor.
Former military heads of
the British army have attacked proposals for Parliament to have to
approve any declaration of war made by the British state. The ruling class is
eager to keep a direct grip on its bodies of armed men; the police and the military,
the chief instruments of class suppression. These are vital to the ruling
class’ ability to keep control of society, and sections of the boureoisie are
reluctant to relinquish them even to their own organs of so-called democratic rule.
Since 1979 UK child
poverty has doubled. In 2006, 3.8 million children were living in poverty in
homes on less than 60% of average income. Although this is a fall of about
600,000 since 1998, this still leaves 500,000 children above the Government’s
own target. This is not the whole picture either – poverty in the whole
population is increasing.
From The Guardian, Wednesday
January 23, 2008: Individual hopes of betterment through education
are often destroyed by the fear of debt, says John McDonnell, who asks why then
is the government ensuring the private sector profits from it.