In the freezing cold on Saturday December
19th members of the UNITE union from the threatened Ericsson plant
at Ansty near Coventry were out in
Coventry city centre distributing leaflets to the public as part of the
campaign to keep the plant open.
The Canadian occupation of Afghanistan
is on its last legs. Richard Colvin’s testimony, admitting that
Canadian soldiers were complicit in the torture of prisoners, is the
finishing touch. We reproduce an article published by the Marxist site Fightback which looks at the Afghan war from a Canadian perspective.
The last day for wellred book orders to be placed from UK customers so that they arrive before Xmas is lunchtime 21st December. We have a load of new titles (including some added last week) so why not pay us a visit at www.wellred.marxist.com.
As the climate change "summit" continues in Copenhapen, we reproduce here an English translation of a leaflet produced by Marxists in Denmark for a demonstration last Saturday
Earlier this week two
hundred angry North London residents packed into an emergency meeting convened
by Islington’s Labour MP, Jeremy Corbyn, after a government document was leaked
revealing plans to close Archway’s Whittington Hospital Accident &
Emergency department.
More than a few ‘commentators’ on the defacto cuts announced on
Thursday by UK Chancellor Darling, as part of the plan to make the public
sector pay for the banks’ bailout, sought to praise the ruthless cuts
announced on the same day in Ireland. The message is clear so far as
these characters are concerned – we need to cut and cut hard. We reproduce a statement issued by the Irish Marxists on the day the cuts were made public.
With the news this week of the100th death this year of a British soldier in
Afghanistan, this imperialist adventure will once again dominate the
news. In a article published in the current issue of Socialist Appeal
published at the end of November, Rob Sewell looks at the latest
situation and its background.
Many of us know that the origins of Christianity have nothing to do with silent nights or wise men. So what are its true origins? John Pickard looks at the reality of how this religion came about.
Land Registry have sacked PCS Rep Jane Brooke. Jane is based at Weymouth
Land Registry and it appears her only offence was to make an industrial
injury complaint against Land Registry.
Surveillance
was conducted on six members of staff at the Weymouth Office. A campaign meeting has been organised by SW PCS for this Friday.
Supporters of Socialist Appeal in Glasgow joined
Greek students in a picket of the Greek Consulate to mark the one year
anniversary of the police murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos in Athens.
The murder set off a revolt of working class youth throughout Greece
that was met with huge police repression.
The talks between the government and
ICTU have collapsed following pressure from the FF back benches. Apparently
they had been pressured from “the private sector” to oppose plans for unpaid
leave proposed by the union leaderships. Make no bones about it. What this
really means is that the Irish bourgeoisie and the multinationals are putting
on the pressure and demanding that the public sector takes huge cuts. It raises
the temperature in what is already a charged situation. If the Irish Congress
of Trade Unions had a fighting Socialist leadership; Ireland would be on the
brink of a general strike. But that is far from the case.
The Ryan and Murphy
reports have exposed the extent of the abuse carried out against children by
Catholic priests in the Dublin Diocese between 1975 and 2004. It is also clear
that such abuses have occurred in practically all parishes of the Roman
Catholic Church in the whole island. Physical and sexual abuses also occurred
in industrial schools, orphanages, and the “Magdalene laundries run by orders
of nuns. It’s not our intention to
dwell on the detail of the investigations, but we feel that it is important to
look at the political and social ramifications of the reports.