Solidarity 430, 15 February 2017

Letters

Neil Laker and Mike Zubrowski ( Solidarity 429) agree that nuclear power is “better than many on the left see it”, but argue for only marginal use on grounds of the finite supply of uranium ore and higher carbon-dioxide emissions from nuclear than from hydro-electric or large wind turbines. The source they cite estimates median CO2 emission rates at about 15 units for nuclear, compared to 30 for small and medium wind-power projects, 80-odd for solar, 500 for gas, and 900 for coal. Uranium is abundant for the foreseeable future — approximately as common as tin or zinc. Nuclear fission options...

Ian Allinson — an inconsistent critic

Ian Allinson is standing as “an experienced workplace activist”, “the grassroots socialist candidate”, and “the only candidate who knows first-hand the experiences and frustrations of our members”. By contrast, writes Allinson, Len McCluskey and Gerard Coyne have both been “been paid officials of Unite for many years.” McCluskey stands for “more of the same” and Coyne stands for “turning the clock back”. Allinson rightly criticises the current Unite leadership for its failure to build a serious campaign against the Tories’ latest anti-union laws, its shortcomings in a succession of industrial...

US radical feminists team up with fundamentalist bigots

The US radical feminist group Women’s Liberation Front (WOLF) have teamed up with the Family Policy Alliance, a section of Focus on the Family, to fight against a federal protection for transgender people in the education system. Title IX was written to protect women and girls from discrimination on the basis of sex in education programmes or activities that receive federal funding. The bone of contention is that the legal category of “sex” in Title IX has recently been changed to “gender identity”. This means that schools which discriminate against transgender people will no longer be able to...

Jeff Sessions: a danger to US civil rights

For a large part Trump has been giving jobs and boosting the careers of old friends with no political experience. Some of his appointees do have greater political clout. They are not, however, better people. Now confirmed as the new Attorney General, Senator Jeff Sessions has a long career opposing civil rights and supporting extreme protectionism. Ostensibly now in charge of civil rights, Sessions was first in the national news in 1985 when he prosecuted three black civil rights workers in Alabama for “voter fraud.” The charges relating to the use of absentee ballots were only brought against...

Four times more unequal

According to the Financial Times (13 February), even big business people are starting to think that top-manager pay has gone over the top. Don’t expect anything too socialistic, but “long-term incentive plans” are being looked at more sourly, as research results heap up to show that the “incentives” have little correlation with business success. The FT reports that top bosses now get an average of £4.3 million a year. “The pay ratio of the average blue-chip chief executive to the average worker, about 140 times in the UK, has escalated from about 33 times in 1984... Pay growth in the US has...

Stop council give-away

Local community and Labour Party resistance is growing to Labour-led Haringey Council’s plans to put £2 billion of public assets in a Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV) — a body half-owned by the council and half by a private developer. The proposed scheme, the largest of its kind ever attempted by a local authority, will see homes, schools, libraries and land handed over to the new HDV. Previous similar schemes were on a smaller scale but did not end well. Croydon Council pulled out after a dispute with the developer, and Tory-controlled Tunbridge Wells paid substantial initial outlays to set...

Russian Parliament sanctions domestic violence

10,000 women in Russia die of domestic violence every year. 40% of all serious violent crime in Russia and over 25% of murders take place in the home. Around 36,000 women are victims of domestic violence every day, and so too are 26,000 children. These are the official statistics. The real statistics will be far higher. Many women do not report incidents of domestic violence, either for fear of repercussions from their husband or partner, or because complaints are often ignored by the police. Children have even less chance of securing legal protection against domestic violence. That provides...

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