Jamie Oliver’s television programme has highlighted the scandal of junk
food school meals being served up to British children by private firms.
In some cases a pathetic 37p is being spent per child. This is the
inevitable consequence of allowing profit hungry privateers anywhere
near our children’s health and education.
Way back in 1959, the then Tory prime minister, Harold Macmillan, went
into an election with the slogan that Britain has “never had it so
good.” Now, according to Gordon Brown, the UK has enjoyed, under his
stewardship, the longest period of sustained economic growth since
1701! However, it does not say much for capitalism and the British
variety of it that the longest period of economic growth in its history
is just seven years.
Tony Blair has called the general election for May 5. He did this as
opinion polls show a sharp fall in Labour support, down to 37% of the
electorate, with the Tories close behind at 34% and the Liberal
Democrats at 21%. This would indicate another Blair victory but with a
much reduced majority and with significant layers of the working class
voting for nobody. There will be no street parties this time.
In Southern Ireland the
economic miracle is well and truly over. As we have predicted and explained for
some time now, the Celtic Tiger phenomenon did not mean that capitalism had
solved any of its contradictions. Now in the context of a declining world market
the only road open to the bosses to protect their profits will be an assault on
workers living standards.
The cornerstone of a freedom established almost 800 years ago is now
under threat from a Labour government. The latest reactionary piece of
legislation hands power to the Home Secretary of the day to hold those
he claims to be suspected terrorists under house arrest indefinitely.
We publish this article written by Ted Grant just before the general
election in Britian in 1979. The article demonstrates that the Tory
policies were doomed to failure because of the sickness of British
capitalism and that the reforms offered in the Labour Party programme
were unattainable on a capitalist basis. The only way to carry out
these reforms and take society forward was the nationalisation of the
means of production, and the creation of a planned economy under the
democratic control of the working class.
We republish this article on the referundum on the EEC Common Market, written by Ted Grant in 1979. The article explains that the struggle against a capitalist common market needs to be linked to the struggle of changing society on socialist lines, as the struggle against the European Constitution today must also be.
A remarkable document written by a Republican Socialist, Ta Power, while in gaol in Ireland in the mid-Eighties. The significance of the conclusions drawn by this young thinker and fighter, who made a careful study of Marxism whilst imprisoned, will not be lost on our readers. Above all the demand that politics and ideology must play the central role in the struggle for national liberation and socialism, in the building of a revolutionary party of the working class, will come as a surprise to many, especially knowing the period and the circumstances in which this document was written. With an introduction by Gerry Ruddy.
Thousands of workers gathered in Coventry (UK) at the end of November
to protest against the closure of the Jaguar plant in Brown’s Lane with
a projected loss of 1150 jobs. From the December issue of Socialist
Appeal.
Elections can provide us with a snapshot of the political mood of
society at a given moment. Yet if we restrict ourselves to who won and
who lost they can teach us very little. This is the editorial from the
current issue of the British Socialist Appeal.
The ongoing conflict between the management of An Post (the Irish state
run postal services) and the Communication Worker’s Union (CWU) may end
up with 1,450 workers losing their jobs, the reduction of workers’
incomes, and the subcontracting of deliveries of mail in rural areas,
if the CWU doesn’t stand up against these attacks.
The left wing Labour MP John McDonnell has tabled an Early Day Motion
condemning the murder of Danilo Anderson, the Venezuelan prosecutor
investigating the April 2002 military coup against president Chavez.