Solidarity 427, 18 January 2017

Northern Ireland: political stalemate while cuts bite

Amid a scandal over a botched renewable heating scheme, the Stormont-based power-sharing institutions collapsed on 16 January, sparking new elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. The immediate trigger for the latest crisis was the resignation on 9 January of the Deputy First Minister, Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness. In resigning, McGuinness automatically deposed the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) First Minister Arlene Foster and paved the way for a new round of elections to the devolved Assembly. In his resignation statement, McGuinness cited DUP “arrogance” as a motivation for ending the...

NHS crisis is being used to boost private healthcare

This article was written for Solidarity 427 in January 2017. Next week's Solidarity will feature a piece on the current "winter crisis" Most days there is a new NHS horror story in the news. The BBC documentary Hospital showed the difficulty many hospitals are facing every day to find beds. In some hospitals even emergency surgery — the so called CEPOD lists — have been cancelled. The Mirror’s front page picture of a child being treated on plastic chairs due to a lack of beds was picked up by Corbyn at Prime Minister’s Questions. The Prime Minister’s response, along with Jeremy Hunt, was to...

Kill first, ask later

The Attorney General Jeremy Wright QC, speaking at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, has said that “specific” advance evidence of a terrorist plot is unnecessary before use of drone strikes against suspected targets. In other words not knowing the target, type of attack or when it will happen is not important even if it means killing innocent people. The only definition that will matter is that the attack is deemed as “imminent”, a purposefully vague phrase. Parliament’s joint committee on human rights and the military have both asked for clarification on this concept and when...

Against Borders for Children

On 14 January, I went with another member of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty to the Against Borders for Children (ABC) conference. The event was about fighting for refugee children, and was organised by ABC, a group that allies with teachers and students to fight for refugee children who are being spied on or even arrested by the government. Speakers included National Union of Teachers General Secretary Kevin Courtney and National Union of Students President Malia Bouattia, as well as representatives of various refugee rights campaigns. The main focus was on resisting the government’s...

Tristram Hunt’s “accomplishments”

Tristram Hunt has resigned from being a Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central to take up the lucrative post of director of the Victoria and Albert museum. Although a surprising appointment, it would be unfair to say that Hunt lacks any qualification for his new job. The son of Baron Hunt of Chesterton holds a First Class degree in history from the University of Cambridge, is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and has written books on Victorian urbanism. However, more than with his knowledge of the past, in recent years he has become associated with other “accomplishments” — such as...

Organise for a member-led Momentum

Momentum was launched in early October 2015, by a segment of the organisers of the effort which got Jeremy Corbyn elected Labour leader on 12 September 2015. Boosted by the flood of new Labour members around Corbyn's election in 2015, and a second flood around his re-election in 2016, Momentum now has 20,000 members, which probably makes it the biggest membership-defined left caucus in the Labour Party's history. The way Momentum has been run centrally has made it harder for local groups to develop, but there are now 150, many lively and active. That is probably the biggest network of local...

A misleading manual

“The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar” Matthew Arnold, On Dover Beach

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