Issue: 2106
Dated: 21 Jun 2008
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The British National Party (BNP) has been picking up seats in elections recently, including their first place on the London assembly. What is fuelling this disturbing trend?
Members of the Unite union at the Education Institute of Scotland (EIS) have voted by 100 percent for strikes over their salary settlement, which should have been paid from 1 April.
Over 30 people demonstrated outside the London embassy of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Tuesday of this week over attempts to prevent the Pakistani TV channel, Geo TV, from broadcasting from Dubai in the UAE.
Over 12,000 Network Rail maintenance workers in the RMT union struck from 12 noon last Saturday to 5.59pm last Sunday in a dispute over harmonisation of terms and conditions.
Postal workers could start a national strike later this year after delegates at last week’s CWU union conference voted unanimously for action against attacks on their pensions, threats to shut scores of offices, and the menace of privatisation.
The four-day strike over pay by tanker drivers supplying Shell petrol stations showed the power that workers have to disrupt the normal running of the system.
Firefighters to ground airlines Firefighters in the Unite union at the Highland and Islands Airports in Scotland are to strike on Monday of next week and Friday 4 July after a breakdown in pay talks.
There was a fringe meeting against the witch-hunt of activists in Unison set for Thursday lunchtime at the conference. The decision by Unison to appeal recent judgments by the Certification Officer in favour of Tony Staunton and Yunus Bakhsh meant their cases were excluded from discussion on the conference floor.
The election to the service group executives of Unison saw left candidates poll well.
The battle over public sector pay and anger against the Labour government shaped the debates at the Unison union local government service group conference in Bournemouth this week.
Over 150 tenants, leaseholders and local trade unionists met in Lambeth, south London, on Wednesday of last week to organise opposition to the council’s attempt to privatise the remaining council housing stock.
The strike by members of the PCS and Prospect civil service workers’ unions at the National Museum of Science and Industry (NMSI) over below-inflation pay severely hit the running of the museum.
Gordon Brown narrowly scraped home in a crucial parliamentary vote on 42-day internment last week. Britain now has the most draconian anti-terror laws in the Western world.
The existing terrorism laws have the potential for miscarriages of justice.
Debate about the future relationship between the CWU union and the Labour Party formed the backdrop to many debates at the union’s conference last week.
Delegates to the telecoms section of last week’s CWU conference fired a warning shot at British Telecom (BT), which is looking to attack their pension scheme.
A motion from London branches that sought to rule out any possible merger between the CWU and the Unite union was passed after a card vote.
The National Shop Stewards Network is holding its national conference in central London on Saturday 28 June.
Strike action at the Hackney CT Plus bus garage in east London planned for Friday of last week was called off at the last minute pending talks with management.
The Unite union held a local pay meeting for bus workers in north east London last week.
Members of the UCU lecturers’ union at Keele university have won a victory in their fight against threatened redundancies in the School of Economic and Management Studies (SEMS).
Students walked out of Withins School in Bolton on Tuesday of this week in protest at their school being sold-off and turned into an academy.
The British National Party (BNP) has made some worrying electoral breakthroughs in recent years, winning council seats in a number of areas across Britain and a seat on the London assembly in May.
Jon McClure from Reverend and the Makers is speaking out in the face of death threats by Nazis on the Stormfront internet bulletin board and other fascist websites.
This Saturday’s anti-Nazi demonstration in London is only the start of the battle to stop the fascist British National Party (BNP).
A new crime report commissioned by the government shows how far Labour has abandoned any notion that the criminal justice system should attempt to rehabilitate offenders.
Spiralling food and fuel prices across the world hit home this week as the Bank of England announced that the government’s preferred inflation measure had climbed above the 3 percent barrier.
We finally have an opportunity to extend abortion rights in Britain. Amendments have been put to the government’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill that seek to increase access to abortion services.
Irish voters have dealt a decisive blow to attempts to create a corporate, militarised European Union (EU) superstate by voting to reject the Lisbon treaty.
Gordon Brown’s government has pressed on with the parliamentary vote to ratify the Lisbon treaty on the European Union (EU), despite Irish voters rejecting it.
The US military is attempting to cover up a great crime taking place in the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
Rebel Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has announced that his movement will no longer take part in any government that supports the US occupation.
The real aim of George Bush’s visit to Britain became clear on Monday when Gordon Brown announced more British troops for Afghanistan and "further sanctions" on Iran.
Today 66 members of the NUT union at Pimlico School began a two-day strike. On an 80 percent turnout, 72 percent had voted to strike.
Up to 10,000 people took to the streets of London today to join the national march against the fascist British National Party (BNP).
A few weeks ago US presidential hopeful Barack Obama travelled to Miami to speak to the Cuban American Foundation, a right wing organisation much loved by George Bush.
Fascist violence has spread since the election of Italy’s new right wing government in April. However this has led to an impressive response from anti-fascists.
It is a damning indictment of New Labour that figures released last week showed a leap in child poverty for the second year running.
On 9 August 2006, nine Northern Irish anti-war activists occupied the Derry offices of Raytheon, one of the biggest arms manufacturers in the world, and destroyed its computers.
How big a threat is fascism today? For many, even on the left, it belongs to the first half of the 20th century, the "age of the dictators". It has nothing to do with the era of neoliberalism, globalisation, and the internet.
The idea that the mass media controls our ideas is a very common one. According to this theory, the media acts as a kind of syringe that injects propaganda directly into our minds.
The arrival of the Empire Windrush 60 years ago represents a defining moment in British history.
Phoolan Devi was the most feared bandit in India in the 1970s. Born to a low caste poor family who sold her into marriage at the age of 11, Phoolan rebelled and joined a gang of bandits.
Al Green has spent the last two years putting together an array of well-known singers, musicians and producers to complete an album with a classic soul sound.
This play tells the true story of Janusz Korczak, children’s author, paediatrician and social experimenter, who was the director of a Jewish orphanage in 1930s Poland.
Almost since the time of its invention, photography has gone hand in hand with portraiture.
It is a sign of just how far to the right New Labour has moved when it can be challenged on civil liberties by the Tory shadow home secretary, the hard right David Davis MP.
The steady erosion of democracy in Britain has been exposed by the way police handled last Sunday’s demonstration against George Bush.
When he became prime minister the one thing Gordon Brown had going for him was that he was not Tony Blair. His supporters told us that he would not stand "shoulder to shoulder" with George Bush in any future wars.
Letters
"Let me thank him for the steadfastness and resolution he has shown in rooting out terrorism in all parts of the world, in working for a Middle East peace settlement, in bringing hope to Africa, in working for a free trade world."Gordon Brown on George Bush