Solidarity 182, 7 October 2010

Labour councils should defy cuts

In many areas Labour councillors say they will "fight the cuts" - but also implement them! This is a longer version of this article than in the printed paper. They say they have no choice. In fact they can and should use their council positions as platforms to mobilise to defy the cuts. The alternative is not a little harmless trimming. Central government is set to cut councils' funding by 25% over the next four and a half years. Since much that councils do is "statutory" - background stuff that they must do, by law - a 25% cut is huge social destruction. Poplar's Labour council, in 1921, and...

Scottish left discuss working-class political representation

Around 80 people turned up to a conference on “Crisis in Working Class Political Representation” held in Glasgow last Saturday (2nd October) and organised by the Wishaw and Motherwell branch of the RMT. The meeting, as the chair explained, was one of a number of conferences around the same theme which had been organised by the RMT in recent years. This one was being held in a Scottish context, in preparation for next year’s Scottish Parliament elections. It had not been convened to set up a new party, but to try to create a coalition of trade unionists and socialists to stand agreed candidates...

Revolution In the Labour Party? What's New In Ed Miliband's Party?

That New Labour would be shaken up by electoral defeat, and that defeat would allow "old Labour" and trade-union discontent with what Blair and Brown had done to the Labour Party to emerge, has been obvious for a long time. That the shake-up would within four months of the general election and New Labour's defeat produce the transformations expressed in the election of Ed Miliband - the trade unions' candidate - as leader of the party, and in his speech to conference on Tuesday 28 September, is nevertheless startling. The speed, scope, and (in a limited sense) completeness of the change is...

Media announce "death of New Labour"

The Daily Telegraph: "New Labour is dead" The Daily Mail: "Last rites for New Labour" The Times: "Miliband buries New Labour" Above is how the press has reported the election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader. It isn't true: New Labour policies and structures, and the personnel of the New Labour machine, are still in place. But the press coverage is not inconsequential, either. It certainly reflects a new mood in the unions. The union leaders went against the Parliamentary leadership over the choice of a new leader - the big majority of the ex-Cabinet wanted David Miliband - and they won. The...

Ed Miliband is Labour Party leader

One sharp-suited young man leaving the Labour Party conference session on 25 September shook his head in disgust at a comrade offering him a leaflet from the Labour Party Democracy Task Force, a group set up to win real life and decision-making power for the Party conference. "After this, I'm getting out of here as soon as I can", he muttered, referring to Ed Miliband's victory in the Labour leadership election. Shortly afterwards, in the Grass Roots Umbrella Network meeting, left Labour MP Kelvin Hopkins gave the same assessment from the opposite angle: "This is the end of a dark night. This...

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