News and analysis

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.

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.

Sixty years ago Railway companies up and down the
country were nationalised. They were not necessarily nationalised for
ideological reasons – the vast majority were were hindering the
development of the British economy after the Second World War. At the time the
view was that you cannot plan what you don’t control and you can’t
control what you don’t own. That view still holds true today.

Over Christmas the railways were in chaos – again. Why does
this sort of thing happen in Britain? It hasn’t always been like this. The
problem started with privatisation. The Tories under John Major plotted a
privatisation so stupid that even Thatcher had thought better of it.

The government is
desperate not to nationalise Northern Rock. As Trotsky says, “the banks concentrate in their hands the actual control over
the economy.” If the banks are
always to be bailed out because they are so important to the economy, then we
need to take them all over.

The government has now pumped about £60
billion of our money into Northern Rock. That’s a lot of money – it’s more than
half what the health service costs. Now the NHS is looking after millions of
people at any one time and hospital services are available round the clock for
you in case anything goes wrong. It employs over a million people and its
benefits are there for all to see.

As we explained in the last issue, the vultures
are hovering round Northern Rock. There are the shareholders on the one hand,
people who think the rest of us owe them a living and, if they bet on a horse
that loses, then we should just give them their money back.