Issue: 2218
Dated: 11 Sep 2010
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Anger is growing at West Midlands police over their decision to prevent demonstrators marching past the Tory Party conference in Birmingham on Sunday 3 October.
The scandal of the Pakistan cricket team’s apparent cheating dominated the news for a week.
More than 400 noisy, angry protesters greeted Bolton’s councillors as they came to the town hall to vote through cuts on Wednesday of last week.
Around 500 people protested against deputy prime minister Nick Clegg’s visit to Sheffield last Friday.
Council workers in Kirklees, West Yorkshire, will take to the streets this Saturday to protest against massive council cuts.
Some 250 parents, children and campaigners gathered in Salford’s sunny Buile Hill Park last Saturday to defend their local maternity unit.
Campaigners from across north east England packed into a victory party for Yunus Bakhsh last week. An Employment Tribunal recently found that Yunus, a nurse and union activist, had been illegally sacked.
The proposed ballot of 8,500 Unison union members at Kirklees Council, West Yorkshire, has been suspended as the council blinked first in the long running dispute over cuts.
Scottish local government workers may be moving towards action against an imposed three year pay deal.
British Airways (BA) cabin crew will vote in a fresh ballot for industrial action—but as yet there is no timetable for the ballot.
Trade unions and community groups are set to hold a rally in Walthamstow, north east London, on Saturday.
The Tories this week began to push through legislation that would slash civil service workers’ redundancy payments.
Hundreds of trade unionists and activists descended on the Norfolk village of Burston on Sunday to celebrate the longest strike in history.
More than 150 bakers at Maple Leaf in Walsall, West Midlands, were set to strike on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.
The next few weeks are a great chance to turn Britain’s biggest union into a fighting and democratic organisation that can better resist the Tories’ attacks.
Over 500 people joined the Hackney LGBT pride march last Saturday—the first in 15 years. Black, white and Asian LGBT people marched through east London.
BBC workers have delivered a stunning vote for strikes in defence of their pensions. Members of the NUJ, Bectu, Unite, Musicians and Equity unions voted by more than 90 percent to take action.
Some 300 people in the pathology department at King’s College Hospital in London are to be balloted for strike action against privatisation. The workers are in the Unite union.
RMT union members who maintain trains on the Jubilee and Northern lines in London held a rock solid 24-hour strike from 7pm on Sunday over pay.
Workers at Coca Cola’s plant in Edmonton, north London, were set to hold two six-hour strikes on Wednesday over pay.
UCU union general secretary Sally Hunt and her supporters are behaving like rabbits in the headlights of the oncoming government cuts.
The statement released by Right to Work says: "This is a violation of the right to freedom of speech and our rights to protest peacefully.
We owe a big "thank you" to everyone who has already donated and helped get this year’s Socialist Worker Appeal off to a great start.
A strike for jobs and safety on London Underground rocked the capital for 24 hours on Monday and Tuesday.
Firefighters from across Britain will march in London on Thursday of next week to support their brothers and sisters in the capital.
The London firefighters have received messages of support from across the world.
The right to protest against fascists was outrageously attacked on Tuesday when leading activist Martin Smith was found guilty of assaulting a police officer.
Supporters were shocked as a magistrates' court this week found leading anti-fascist Martin Smith guilty of assaulting a police officer.
There was a huge amount of trade union turnout to support Martin. There were banners from the national NUJ, South Yorkshire NUJ, London Fire Brigade Unison, CWU South Central No1, RMT European Passenger Services and Haringey trades council.
Saturday 6 November is a key date for every activist as it will see the most broadly-based demonstration against racism, Islamophobia and the Nazis for many years.
Connaught plc, a public sector outsourcing and social housing company, was on the edge of bankruptcy on Tuesday—meaning the loss of 10,000 jobs.
More than 50,000 children who already live below the poverty line will be hit by new housing benefit cuts.
Drew McConnell sings and Martin Smith speaks
Bob Diamond, a banker with a fortune estimated at £95 million, is to be the next chief executive of Barclays.
David Cameron’s chief spin doctor Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World, has denied any knowledge of journalists tapping phones during his time in charge of the paper.
"The National Union of Teachers sends its support to Martin Smith and has full confidence in the aims of UAF and Love Music Hate Racism and support their democratic right to demonstrate."
Protesters gathered outside the French embassy in London last Saturday to demonstrate against president Nicholas Sarkozy’s recent expulsion of Roma communities from the country.
Around 100,000 people took part in over 130 demonstrations across France last Saturday against the government’s attacks on immigrants and Roma people.
I am shocked at the verdict delivered in a magistrates court today, in the absence of any evidence, that Martin Smith, national co-ordinator of Love Music Hate Racism, was guilty of assault on a police officer at the demonstration outside of the BBC on October 22 2009, against Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time.
Unite Against Fascism (UAF) national officer Martin Smith will appeal against his conviction by magistrates this week for assault on a police officer. He has issued a statement, thanking his supporters and confirming that he will challenge the verdict.
The Kabul district of Khoshal Khan Mina has a dark history. In 1992 the worst massacre of Afghanistan’s bloody civil war took place here.
Around 500 protesters took to the streets of Kabul last Monday to demand an end to the US occupation.
Millions of French workers joined strikes and marches on Tuesday against plans to savage their pensions.
A strike by over a million South African public sector workers that had lasted three weeks was suspended by union leaders on Monday.
"You’ve got to put in prison those who deserve to be there," said Tony Blair this week—criticising the Tories. Of course he doesn’t believe that those who ram through cuts and attack workers should be locked up.
Police in Mozambique killed ten people and injured more than 400 during protests against crippling price increases last week. The fighting is a symptom of a growing global food crisis.
The late comedian Bob Monkhouse said, "If you can fake the sincerity the rest is easy". As a mantra, it is as true of Tony Blair’s interminable memoir as is it of his political career.
‘The experience never goes away," says Paddy Hill. He still burns with anger at the British state 35 years after he was imprisoned for a bombing he did not commit.
‘I was arrested on 30 November 1974. I was dragged from my bed at home in Northern Ireland. I was handcuffed and thrown in the back of an army personnel carrier with squaddies in.
It’s 1986, somewhere in Britain. Shaun is finishing his final exam at school—a History CSE, for nostalgics.
Three teenage boys arrive to serve sentences at a juvenile offenders’ facility in Montana as this new prison drama opens.
Maxim Gorky’s play about life in Russia in 1902 is perfectly suited to the tiny warren that is the Baron’s Court theatre.
Cory Doctorow, web-famous for his part in promoting free culture on the internet, weaves an inspiring tale of rebellion against globalisation in his latest novel.
The TUC trade union congress meets from this weekend in the context of an onslaught of cuts from the Tory government. The key question it faces is how to respond to government attacks.
Tory education secretary Michael Gove’s flagship policies are a flop.
As part of our tributes to Tom Behan, we are pleased to feature this appreciation by Carmen Casaliggi
Tom Behan, who died on Monday of last week, made a lasting contribution to the left in two countries and in two languages. Born in London he was most at home in his adopted Italy, above all in his beloved Naples.
‘I grew up in Harrow, or more precisely Rayners Lane. The public school up on the hill had nothing to do with our world. In fact one of the first times me and some mates ever went up there was when we bunked off one afternoon.
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