Solidarity 276, 27 February 2013

Some merit in Jon Cruddas

“Who decides Labour’s Policies?” ( Solidarity 275) made thoughtful reading. It’s certainly true that the Labour Party needs more democracy, just like most other parts of our society. There should be a greater emphasis placed on events such as the party Conference deciding party policies. The days of top-down policy making really was a feature of New Labour. We need a genuinely “new” Labour Party that is more democratic, socialist and orientated to working people. Fewer policy wonks, and more workers, are needed. All too often politics and political parties have become very middle-class. Fewer...

Serving up horseshit

An early entry in the tabloid editors’ manual is a device known as story selection. While other newspapers and broadcast outlets may think the main story is, say, a global climate summit or war in Syria, the tabloid editor looks constantly for news that reinforces his paper’s worldview. The aim is to keep them angry and embittered about the right issues. An obvious manifestation of this is the constant stream of stories related to immigrants, asylum seekers and benefit claimants in the Mail, Express and Sun. Whatever else may be happening in the world it is important to remind people that the...

Student feminist conference

The London Student Feminist Network organised a conference on 23-24 February, Student Feminists 2013. Around 80 people attended on the first day, fewer on the second. The conference encompassed a variety of workshops, including ones on sex worker activism, Education for Choice and further education activism. Others were more experiential. A Workers’ Liberty/ Women’s Fightback session was on women education workers including information about Action for ESOL, the Postgraduate Workers’ Association and the 3 Cosas cleaners’ campaign. It is very positive that this initiative has been made, but in...

The Tory student bigots

The “lad culture” (as seen in men’s magazines like Nuts) has been around for a long time. But it has recently taken a turn for the far worse with websites like Unilad, Truelad and others finding massive popularity on university campuses. Unilad (until it was forced through criticism to close down and reconstruct itself) existed to “push boundaries” with its “jokes” about humiliating women, and “tongue-in-cheek” advice about how to inflict sexual and other violence on women. All this at a time when according to a survey by the National Union of Students one in seven female students have been a...

Cyprus elections

Presidential elections were held in Cyprus on 17 February. In a run-off on 24 February Nicos Anastasiadis of the Democracy Rally Party (DHSY) won with 57.5% of the vote. The Cyprus elections come amid panic about the collapse of banks and the entire economy of Cyprus — and a long strike by construction workers. Anastasiadis replaces Demetris Christofias of AKEL (the Communist Party), who is going to go down in history as the “communist president” who brought Cyprus under an EU/ECB/IMF cuts memorandum. He did not seek re-election. Stavros Malas, supported by AKEL, got 42.5% of the vote. • Full...

Bulgarian crisis

The resignation of the Bulgarian government on Tuesday 19 February amid escalating popular protests provides an illustration of the way in which austerity and neo-liberalism interact — and, more positively, the way in which this can lead resistance. The protests were sparked by the continually rising energy prices that have resulted from the privatisation of the state monopoly in electrical distribution in 2005, which have doubled and in some cases tripled. Government austerity has resulted in what the International Trade Union Confederation has called “catastrophic social consequences” and...

Can You Hear Them Marching?

Listen. Can't you hear them? It's the sound of marching feet. It's the armies of the workers. From every land they meet. They are marching on to Victory. They shall trample every foe, For their slogan's human brotherhood Everywhere they go. They shall up the bars from prisons. They will wreck each dungeon cell, They will liberate the victims Of the boss-created hell. They will level social barriers And by reason of their might Eradicate for ever The ruling parasite They will trample class distinction In the mud beneath their heels For tomorrow's ruling class shall come From factories, mines...

Stalin's bloody rise to power

This article by US Trotskyist Albert Glotzer (taken from Labor Action 16 March 1953) was written to mark the death of Joseph Stalin sixty years ago (5 March 1953). Glotzer had been court reported at the 1937 John Dewey Commission, called to hear trumped-up charges by Stalin against Trotsky. The unwarrantedly peaceful death of Joseph Stalin has unloosed a flood of quickie biography, much of which seems to follow the genteel maxim, "Speak not ill of the dead." But it is more important that we speak the truth—the truth about the man who, from a relatively obscure role among the militants of the...

Socialists and student union elections

In the next two months, a number of AWL members, sympathisers and activists we work with closely will be running in student union elections. AWL students are very active in grassroots student campaigning – in anti-cuts groups, protests, solidarity with working-class struggles and so on. We think standing in SU elections can play a subsidiary but important role in such struggles and in winning people to socialist ideas. And we take these elections seriously. In early March, AWL member Daniel Lemberger Cooper will be standing for a second year as Vice President of University of London Union, the...

Time running out for fight on teachers' pay

The National Union of Teachers Executive meets on 28 February to consider the next steps in the campaign to defend national pay. By the time Solidarity is published, the outcome should be known. The key issue is whether and when the union is prepared to strike to oppose government proposals to move to individualised pay. At two recent Executive meetings, proposals to call strikes on specific dates were defeated. In January, a proposal to strike on 13 March fell by only two votes. The policy that was carried, however, stated that the February meeting would decide on national strike action to...

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