"HORRIBLE" was how one of New Labour's staunchest supporters in the trade union movement described last week's Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Brighton. The vast majority of delegates, the seven million workers they represent and millions of others felt differently. "You get a feeling that, at last, slowly the anger and concerns of working people are finally getting a hearing at the top of the unions," says TUC delegate Jane Loftus, a member of the national executive of the postal workers' CWU union. The conference put clear red water between the trade unions and New Labour.
NEW LABOUR loyalist Angela Eagle MP tried to launch a standing ovation from the observers' gallery when Gordon Brown finished his TUC speech. She had to sit down in embarrassment. Not one other person rose to their feet. Polite applause petered out after 14 seconds. It was the worst-received speech by a Labour minister to the TUC since Blair became party leader.
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"EVEN MANY people in my office who are usually anti-union are now arguing for a strike," says a delivery worker from Crowborough in East Sussex, near Tunbridge Wells.
I remember 11 September 1973. It is deep in the mind of every Chilean. Around 7am we heard on the radio that there was a military uprising. There were only two radio stations functioning. We all tuned to the radio. Allende announced that in the city of Valparaiso the navy had risen up and taken control of the city. But there was no sign of an uprising in the military garrison in the capital, Santiago.
ALLENDE FACED the organised resistance of the Chilean ruling class. Allende's government did nationalise some industry in its first year. But his government was far from extreme. It nationalised 38 big enterprises and took over 1,400 farms. But this was not a major inroad into capitalist power.
THE US government was horrified at the prospect of Allende heading a left wing government in Chile. There were over 100 US multinationals who had investments worth over $1 billion in Chile. Chile received more US aid per head than any other country in the western hemisphere.
THE RESULT gave added urgency to debates at this week's TUC on building a mass campaign to beat back the Nazi BNP. The result in Grays is especially worrying, as the town is little different to dozens across the country.
OVER 2,000 people joined the biggest, and angriest, demonstration yet last Saturday against the Dungavel refugee detention centre in Lanarkshire (right). Scotland's "asylum prison" has been the subject of protests since it opened two years ago. Saturday's demo began with furious demonstrators banging on the huge metal barrier around the centre chanting, "Shut it down!"
THE BNP were beaten in a council by-election in Walker, Newcastle, last week. Kenny Bell, deputy regional convenor of Unison Northern Region, explained how unions are at the centre of a model campaign to beat the BNP.
"AS ONE who cast doubts about the wisdom of holding a People's Assembly against the war before the end of August I apologise."
