A decisive battle has been going on within the PSUV in Venezuela, a
battle over who are to be the parliamentary candidates for the party in
the elections later this year. The left have been fighting an unequal
battle, where more right-wing candidates have had much more resources
and official backing locally than candidates who genuinely represent
the workers and poor. It is a key battle in the Venezuelan revolution.
As a new Tory/Liberal coalition takes office – in reality an accomodation of two capitalist parties – on a programme of austerity and attacks on the public sector, we look back at the lessons of the election and what it means for the Labour and trade union movement. (Photo – Flickr)
BELFAST: The
Draft Public Assemblies, Parades and Protests Bill which is ostensibly
designed to create a framework for resolving the question of
controversial parades and demonstrations, especially during the
marching season is generating opposition from workers in the North
because of its implications for Trade union and political
demonstrations organised by the Trade Union Movement and protests
against the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as community protests
such as anti racist demonstrations like those that took place last year
on the Lisburn Road after the racist attacks in Belgravia Avenue and Wellesley Avenue.
Severfield Reeve workers in Yorkshire have won a significant concession in their struggle
In 1999, the government set a target of eradicating child poverty
within a generation and of halving child poverty by 2010. Progress has
been made and (according to a government report ‘Ending child poverty:
everybody’s business’) 600,000 children have been taken out of relative
poverty, and absolute poverty has fallen by 1.8 million to less than
half the 1998-99 level. But many children still live in poverty and
this is unacceptable. (Photo – flckr)
Who has won the election? Everybody has lost. The ruling class was
quite clear what it wanted and needed. There is a crisis. They need to
unload the burden of the crisis on to the backs of the working class.
To achieve that they needed a strong majority Conservative government
ready and willing to put the boot in to jobs and public services. The
election hasn’t delivered it. Here is the editorial from the new issue of Socialist Appeal.
The 2010 general election has produced the result that the ruling class were dreading: a hung parliament. With one seat to declare, no party has a working majority. So the dirty dealing begins…
Thursday 6th May. Election Day. After weeks of campaigning the opinion
polls suggest that the result is still too close to call. Of course,
the polls could be wrong as they were in 1970 and more recently in
1992. But one thing is clear – no one is looking forward to whoever
forms the next government with much optimism.
Since the crisis in Greece has hit
the headlines there have appeared in the bourgeois media many stories
about how Greece has too many civil servants, how the working week is
very short, how people retire early on fat pensions, and so on, as if
this were the cause of the crisis. Facts and figures, however, can be
very stubborn things and they tell a completely different story.
Who killed Blair Peach? This is a question
which has been asked many times over the last 31
years, not only by the family and friends of Blair Peach, but the by the
thousands who joined a demonstration to protest against a so-called public
meeting held by the far right National Front as a provocation in predominantly
Asian Southall, on April 23rd,
during the election campaign of 1979.
Come to the 2010 national conference of Hands Off Venezuela, taking place in London on May 22nd. Hear speakers from Venezeula updating you on what is happening and how you can support the revolution.
Leaving the home you grew up in, the people you will love forever and
experiences to look upon from afar, being an international student is no
easy task, perhaps, even more so, when you come from a small island..