Solidarity 243, 25 April 2012

Citizen Protection minister Michalis Chrisochoidis claims that by being “tough” on “illegal” immigrants he will marginalise the far-right Xrisi Aygi (Golden Dawn). The results are the exact opposite. In 12 polls between 18 and 20 April, Xrisi Aygi averaged 5.4%, way up on its 0.29% in 2009. If Xrisi Aygi wins seats in the 6 May election it will get a wider audience and significantly improve their finances. For over 15 years Xrisi Aygi has been regarded as a marginal Nazi gang of criminals. Today they are playing the card of “anti-memorandum patriotism”. Xrisi Aygi members have said they “will...

Evidence on 24 April at the Leveson Inquiry has shown Tory Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt acting almost as a Murdoch employee. This, while he was supposedly in charge of impartial government scrutiny of the Murdoch empire’s bid to take full ownership of BSkyB, and whether it was admissible under the laws about media ownership. Labour has called for Hunt to resign; the Tory Daily Telegraph tips him as “the next minister to go”, ahead now of Health Minister Andrew Lansley. Emails produced in evidence showed a Murdoch aide reporting that he had information, “although absolutely illegal”, on what...

“What the West must realize is that in today’s geopolitical situation, particularly given the rise of China, it needs Myanmar”, declared a top official of Myanmar’s (Burma’s) military dictatorship in a recent article for the Washington Post. The military regime has been rebalancing away from its long-time ally, China, and trying to draw in Western aid and investment — in the first place, to get EU and US sanctions lifted. It has been spurred on by prospects of revenues from offshore gas fields and clothing exports. In January 2011, the Indian-based Burmese newsletter Mizzima reported that the...

Anti-fascists in Brighton succeeded in massively outnumbering and disrupting the annual far-right “March for England” on Sunday 22 April. Nationalists were reduced to a curtailed march and tiny rally inside a police cordon, well away from their planned route. The success is a vindication for direct-action anti-fascism, as against the let’s-have-a-festival-two-miles-up-the-road-from-where-the-fascists-are approach to combating the far-right. • More from Brighton Anti-Fascists and Schnews here

On 18 April, a jury failed to reach a verdict on whether Alfie Meadows, the student activist nearly beaten to death by a policeman on a demonstration in 2010, was in fact guilty of violent disorder. Colin Goff, Vishnu Wood and Jack Locke were found not guilty of violent disorder, but Locke was found guilty of arson. The jury also failed to reach a verdict on Zac King. Alfie’s retrial is unlikely to take place before October 2012.

On Thursday 19 April, a colourful and noisy protest of 250 women, children and men, plus teddy bears and balloons took place in opposition to cuts in Sure Start nursery care provision in Liverpool. The council is planning to cut close 10 of 26 Sure Start centres. This will mean job cuts as well as the devastation of childcare services people rely on. Private nurseries are over subscribed so many parent are worried they cannot continue to work or study. The protest took place at the consultation meeting called by Liverpool council — 100 people went inside to present a petition while the rest...

On Saturday 21 April, Feminist Fightback and other pro-choice activists tried to prevent anti-abortion extremists from marching to a Marie Stopes clinic in Woodford, Essex. A group calling themselves the “Helpers of God's Precious Infants” attempted to stop women from attending their appointment at the clinic. They held up images of foetuses and blocked one side of the road, handing out flyers which claimed that abortion will “damage your maternal instinct and ... bonding process with any other children you have” and can lead to “alcohol, drug abuse and eating disorders.” When feminist...

Tory MP Nadine Dorries said it: the Government is led by “two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to want to understand the lives of others”. As council elections and referenda on whether cities want elected mayors approach on 3 May, Labour has at last begun to pull ahead in the polls, leading the Tories by a margin variously estimated between 7% and 13%. It would be much more if Labour’s leaders campaigned properly against the Tory cuts and against those whom Ed Miliband rightly calls “the predators”. But for 3 May Labour council candidates are saying they...

Current European Union policies will produce "Great Depression conditions for a decade" in southern Europe, predicts economist Engelbert Stockhammer. This is a longer version of this report than in the printed paper Stockhammer was the opening speaker in an economists' conference about the crisis in Europe on 19 April at Kingston University, in London. Many of the other speakers were, like Stockhammer, members of the "Euro-memo" network of leftish economists from across Europe. Euro-memo produces briefings each year arguing against the neo-liberal direction of EU policy and (on a broadly...

The official NHS regulatory body, Monitor, has sent a letter to NHS hospital managers (17 April), saying that they need to cut budgets by 7 per cent a year from 2013-4 onwards. A typical NHS hospital with an annual turnover of £300 million will need to cut £21 million. Health care costs generally increase faster than costs generally, because of an ageing population, longer survival by sick elderly people, and a greater number of expensive treatments; so these cuts are huge. The Department of Health wants the NHS to cut about £50 billion over the next decade. Mike Farrar, chief executive of the...