WE HAVE been posting Socialist Worker direct to a seller in the Welsh town of Cardigan. On Saturday she and a friend decided to set up a stall in the town centre and use the \"Get the troops out of Iraq\" petition.
Jim Rogers was an activist in the FBU firefighters' union and a Labour council leader in Harlow, Essex. Now he is heading up the Respect coalition's list of candidates in the Eastern constituency for the European elections
POLITICIANS HAVE said that the allegations of torture by British troops have impugned the reputation of the army. In fact, torture is a weapon long used by the British army to terrorise those who have challenged its imperial power.
ONE WEEK before the start of the Iraq war Charles Kennedy gave a remarkable speech to the Liberal Democrats' conference. He told delegates, \"The threat of war now looms over us all. Increasingly it seems we shall see conflict very soon, perhaps next week and probably without a second UN resolution authorising the use of force. When war comes, I want to make it absolutely clear that the Liberal Democrats will be backing our troops. We supported the deployment to the Gulf in support of UN Resolution 1441. If they are now asked to risk their lives for their country and for all of us, they will have our unqualified support. They are in the Gulf region to deal with a dangerous and bruta
ONE PART of Socialist Worker's role each week is to be a mini-manifesto for Respect. And that makes it essential reading for everyone who wants to see Blair humbled from the left on 10 June. One example of how the paper can work comes from Croydon and Sutton. There the Respect election agent bought a copy of the paper and e-mailed the article by London candidate Lindsey German to everybody on the Respect contact list.
TURNING ON the radio for Today in Parliament on 28 April, I hear Michael Howard mocking Blair over immigration. He points out that the prime minister's speech on the subject to the CBI that week had not been planned, but had been inspired by panic at newspaper headlines.
UNITE AGAINST Fascism is the biggest anti-fascist movement in Britain since the 1970s. It has brought together anti-racist activists, the Muslim Council of Britain and socialists with youth clubs and musicians. Every trade union has signed up. Unite is planning to take the campaign to the next stage with five big festivals in areas that the Nazi BNP are targeting in the 10 June election (see below for details). The first of these took place in Sunderland on Monday of this week, with at least 8,000 people during the day. There will also be a national campaign of mass leafleting.
"I would like to locate the question of poverty and the G8 in the context of the crisis of global capitalism." Those are not my words. They are the words of US billionaire George Soros. When Soros starts talking about the crisis of world capitalism, we should also call a spade a spade.
The world is still a system of nations and governments, dominated by imperialism and with contradictions between these governments. The history of the G8 is the history of the most powerful nations trying to come to common solutions to problems-but also a history of tensions between them. The G8 was created in 1975 -f irst as G5 and growing to G8. It was set up at the start of a global recession and just after the US lost the Vietnam War. There are four periods in the development of the G8. The years 1975 to 1977 were the period of looking for Keynesian solutions-looking for new areas in which to invest. The G8 countries invested large amounts of capital in the south. At the end of the 19
THE MAY Day greetings in Socialist Worker had to expand from their planned pages to pages 16 and 19 this week. One of those involved in putting together the pages says, \"It is the first time we have ever had a greeting from a national union. There are more messages from regional bodies than before and more that have been passed officially through union meetings rather than paid for by a group of readers. It's very impressive when you look at how many have come from unions like the CWU postal and telecom workers' union. Our only problem over the last week has been trying to cram in all the messages we received!\"
What we need in London is a voice for all the people who feel that we need fundamental change in the way the city operates. These people feel there is something wrong with a society which sees its priorities as spending money on war and privatisation rather than helping the poorest people and public services.
"As the police rushed past him, one of them hit him on the head with the stick. I was in my garden and saw this quite clearly. He was left sitting against the wall. He tried to get up, but he was shivering and looked very strange. He couldn't stand. Then the police came back and told him, 'Move! Come on, move!' They were very rough with him and I was shocked because it was clear he was seriously hurt."
