Solidarity 581, 10 February 2021

Longstanding socialist and Labour Party activist Mick Brooks (1948-2021), who died in January as a result of complications from Covid-19, was co-author with Michael Roberts of the Fire Brigades Union’s 2013 pamphlet on public ownership of the banks and high finance, It's time to take over the banks . (The two also ran regular Karl Marx walking tours in London.) In the face of multiple convulsive social crises, the demand for public and democratic control of finance is more relevant and urgent than ever. Mick continued to vocally and actively make the case for it. For those who did not know him...

Two numbers tell us what to campaign for on the pandemic. Pfizer reckons to make £4 billion profit this year from its Covid-19 vaccine. 70% of people applying for Britain’s £500 self-isolation dole are turned down. We must swell the growing campaign for full isolation and sick pay for all workers. We must demand that governments requisition Big Pharma, in the first place putting vaccine information into the World Health Organisation’s Covid Technology Access Pool so that production can be maximised under public control, on the analogy of wartime. And fund the WHO’s Covax scheme to get vaccines...

The government has come under attack from its own climate change advisors about the decision to allow a new deep coal mine to be built in Cumbria. The Climate Change Committee (CCC) cited the projected 0.4Mt of annual CO2 emissions from the mine as contradicting the already wildly insufficient commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. It would be the first new deep coal mine in 30 years in the UK, bucking the recent trend against coal, and particularly damaging to attempts to greenwash the Tory government ahead of hosting COP26. On the other side of the North, recent victories for...

For many, Covid-19 has exposed the need for urgent restoration of a public health system and an expanded publicly provided NHS. But, while applauding the work of “key workers”, the Government is steaming ahead with the plans to restructure the NHS. NHS England (NHSE) is currently consulting on their latest plans for “integrating care”, including changes to legislation. The summary below of the key changes, and an explanation of where the current trajectory of privatisation and restructuring may end, is taken from a presentation made by the Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital campaign. In 2012 the...

I really think we need to challenge the prevailing narrative that it was Labour’s position on Brexit that caused it to lose the “red wall”. Unfortunately, this seems to be the prevailing view in the Labour Party (and I’ve also heard it from Socialist Workers Party members). The real reasons for Labour’s electoral disaster are, in reality, far more complex than this simplistic explanation, and go back many years before Brexit became a political issue. Labour has been haemorrhaging votes in the “red wall” areas a long time, and the Brexit issue was only the straw that finally broke the camel’s...

No, the Labour Party is not “dead”, “dying”, or in “a death spiral”. For good, but often for ill, Labour remains the dominant and unavoidable fact of working-class politics in Britain (although a bit less so on Scotland). Even with a dull right-wing leader attacking the left, failing to attack the Tories, and not making much impression, millions of people still vote Labour, including the most organised workers. It still has organisational and organic links to the biggest unions (or to their bureaucracies at least). It still retains a prestige, however tarnished, from founding the NHS and the...

According to the Financial Times of 9 February, quoting local government finance expert Bob Whiteman, at least 12 further local authorities are on the brink as budget-making for 2021-22 approaches. In November, Croydon’s Labour council issued a “section 114” notice, an emergency freeze on spending because it couldn’t balance its budget. Whiteman says the 12 are “the tip of the iceberg”. Six may avoid “section 114” by doing deals with the government to shift spending into capital accounts. The Tories have cut some £15 billion from central government funding to councils since 2010. In 2020-1...

Some 600 people have been detained in Turkey since 4 January after protests against the government’s appointment of Melih Bulu as head of Boğaziçi University spread in Istanbul and Ankara. Most have been released, despite repeated statements from officials that the protesters are “terrorists”. Boğaziçi University students have sent an open letter to Turkish President Erdoğan. Excerpts: “You are not a sultan and we are not your subjects. All our friends who have been arrested or detained in this period must be released immediately and rector Melih Bulu must resign! “You appointed a trustee...

The Fire Brigades Union is calling for an emergency recall Labour Party conference to protect democracy in the party. FBU general secretary Matt Wrack announced the call at an online meeting on 7 February attended by over 400 Labour Party people and organised to demand the reinstatement of dozens of Constituency and branch Labour Party officers. The dozens were suspended for allowing debate on critical motions following Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension, reinstatement, and withdrawal of the whip. Other speakers included Tony Kearns, deputy general secretary of the post and telecom union CWU, and Ian...

I’ve been wanting to watch The Perfect Candidate ever since watching Wadjda , by the same director Haifaa al-Mansour, last year. For far too long, the former was not readily available online: it finally is now. Haifaa al-Mansour is Saudi Arabia’s first female filmmaker, and one of the countries most well-known and controversial. Both films are set in Saudi Arabia; both follow outspoken, confident female protagonists, living within and struggling against the misogynist society they find themselves within. Wadjda, the 2012 movie’s title character, is a ten-year-old rebellious girl who...