Socialist Worker

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Cameron lies about NHS: Tories axe cancer nurses

Desperate Tories will try to persuade us this week that their plans for NHS "reform" will not rip the service apart.

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International Comment Features Reviews What We Think Other

News

What is the driving force behind imperialism?

Western powers have presented their intervention in Libya as a selfless act to protect rebels from a dictator.

United action against the EDL in Blackburn

More than a thousand people demonstrated against the racist English Defence League (EDL) in Blackburn last Saturday.

Liverpool rallies against racism

Over 100 people attended the Fighting Fascism & Islamophobia conference organised by Unite Against Fascism and the Unite union in Liverpool last Saturday.

Connexions workers strike in Birmingham

Connexions careers advice workers across Birmingham were set to strike on Wednesday of this week.

Scottish Borders Council - is this a price really worth paying?

A deal at Scottish Borders Council should be a warning to trade unionists everywhere.

London Underground drivers ballot over sackings

All London Underground drivers in the RMT union are balloting for strikes against the victimisation of Eamon Lynch and Arwyn Thomas.

Strike threat at Jobcentre Plus

PCS Union reps for 10,000 call centre workers in Jobcentre Plus were waiting to see if management agreed to their demands over working conditions this week.

Management moves after vote for strikes at Driving Standards Agency

A solid strike vote by driving examiners and administration workers in the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) has forced management to move over job losses and closures.

Fight for jobs goes on at Identity and Passport Service

Bosses are going ahead with the closure of 33 interview offices in the Identity and Passport Service.

Voting continuing in Britain's biggest union

Campaigners are mobilising for the biggest possible vote for the United Left group in the Unite union national executive elections.

Clegg hounded at Leicester's Capital FM

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg was due to do a Q&A at Capital FM at the Cinema De Lux in Leicester last week.

Private sector cuts hit Thanet

Thanet Press, which has been running for over 200 years, has gone into administration.

Fire cuts create a postcode lottery

Cuts to firefighters in the West Midlands will put safety at risk, says their union.

Strikes grow against academies

Teachers are fighting a key battle against one of the Tory government’s flagship policies in schools across Britain.

Hundreds of school children walk out in Dundee

Hundreds of students from schools across Dundee marched to the council on Friday of last week.

Hackney school walkout over bullying

Teachers at a primary school in Hackney walked out for two days on 22 and 23 March against bullying.

Liverpool and Newcastle lecturers call strikes to defend jobs

Lecturers in the UCU union at Liverpool Hope University were set to strike on Friday of this week over threatened job cuts.

Anti-Tory mood at Leeds University

Over 50 students marched to the Leeds University Senate meeting on Thursday of last week.

Momentum to reject deal in EIS union

Scottish teachers in the EIS union will begin voting this week on a deal on pay, jobs and conditions.

Scottish lecturers vote to back strikes on 10 May

UCU members in Scotland met on Friday of last week in the midst of disputes on jobs, pay and pensions.

Angry mood over cuts

Delegates to Unison union’s annual health sector conference were in an angry mood this week.

Saltend: solidarity can win

Engineering construction workers locked out from their jobs at the Saltend chemicals plant near Hull, Yorkshire, looked set to escalate their battle this week.

British Airways bosses scoop bonus bonanza

It’s official—British Airways (BA) has the money to pay cabin crew a decent wage and reinstate sacked workers. Ex-boss Willie Walsh pocketed a £420,000 bonus for his "work" in the last nine months of 2010.

Defend the Zimbabwe Six

Six socialists in Zimbabwe have been released on bail, but they are still on trial for their lives and need international support for their legal fees.

Joint east London strike is an ‘absolute inspiration’

East London saw Britain’s first big, united strike against Tory cuts last week.

Camden teachers’ battle shows how to fight the Tory cuts

Fury at the Tories burst onto the streets of Camden, north London, last week as teachers struck against £20 million cuts to key children’s services.

After 26 March: demand for general strike grows

The mass demonstration against cuts on 26 March lit a fire under the working class.

‘Hardest hit’ will march

A broad coalition of disability groups and campaigners has called a demonstration against cuts.

London day centres win reprieve

Two London day centres have won reprieves thanks to anti-cuts campaigns.

Wellingborough protest stands up for buses

More than 50 people took part in a sit-down protest over cuts to bus routes in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, on Thursday of last week.

'March for justice for my uncle Smiley Culture'

David Emmanuel, also known as the reggae artist Smiley Culture, died of a stab wound to the heart during a police raid on his home on 15 March.

Ian Tomlinson: cop faces inquest

The police officer who pushed Ian Tomlinson just minutes before he died during the G20 protests gave evidence at the inquest into his death on Monday and Tuesday this week.

How did Birmingham man die?

The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating West Midlands police after the death of a man who had "dealings" with the police.

New report shows Britain’s role in arming dictators

MPs on the Commons Committees on Arms Exports Controls this week detailed the licences given to British firms to arm countries in North Africa and the Middle East.

Bahraini activists face new repression

Government repression of Bahraini activists inside and outside the Gulf state continues.

Anti-choice Dorries is trying to cut abortion rights

Tory MP Nadine Dorries has launched an attempt to restrict women’s access to abortion.

British government to open secret files on Mau Mau war in Kenya

The British government has admitted holding 1,500 secret files on its role in the brutal suppression of Kenya’s Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s.

Goldman Sachs does god’s work

The boss of Goldman Sachs bank pocketed £12 million this year—almost double what he received last year.

Exclusive: ‘Sick firm told us to catch out disabled people'

The ruthless Tory drive to remove thousands of seriously ill and disabled people from benefits was exposed this week as a nurse employed to assess them spoke out to Socialist Worker.

Egyptian socialists on the state attacks on protesters in Tahrir Square

The Military Council is the guardian of dictatorship and corruption The attacks by the armed forces on unarmed demonstrators at dawn Saturday using live bullets and tear gas, and their attempt to terrify protestors with armoured cars, puts the Military Council clearly in the camp of counter-revolution.

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International

Intervention tries to derail Libya's uprising

The brutal reality of Western intervention in Libya is being exposed by the day. As towns fall and are retaken, the revolution is being taken out of the hands of the revolutionaries.

Unite union calls for end to air attacks on Libya

In an important move, Unite, Britain’s biggest trade union, has called for an end to the air attacks on Libya.

Yemen: revolt spreads despite security force massacre

Protests against president Ali Abdullah Saleh continued to rock Yemen this week. His security forces are continuing to try to crush the movement.

Statement against intervention in Libya from the Egyptian tax collectors' union

No to Foreign InterventionYes to Arab Intervention

West created crisis in Ivory Coast

French and United Nations (UN) helicopters bombed the compound of Ivory Coast’s sitting president Laurent Gbagbo on Monday.

Fukushima nuclear crisis creates a spirit of dissent in Japan

As Japan tries to come to terms with the havoc and devastation wreaked by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami, much has been written about the "stoical character" of the Japanese people. It's true that, for many, the only certainty in this world is disaster—specifically "tensai" (heavenly disaster).

Fighting sectarianism in Northern Ireland

A bomb killed Catholic police officer Ronan Kerr in Omagh in Northern Ireland last week.

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Comment

Libyan intervention reveals splits among global elite

Western intervention in Libya has exposed the extraordinary flux in relations among the great powers. In the first place, they’re badly split.

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Features

Brixton 1981: the great insurrection

The poor of Brixton, south London, rose up against poverty and racism 30 years ago this week. Police stations and vans were set alight as thousands poured onto the streets. People were no longer prepared to put up with racist police officers and rising unemployment.

Alex Wheatle: ‘It was like living in a police state’

‘Brixton was a place of boarded up properties and squats in 1981. There were no opportunities. A lot of people lost hope—and we had a racist police force of course.

A strategy to ‘incorporate’ and head off radical resistance to racism

The scale of the rioting panicked the ruling class and Margaret Thatcher’s government was forced to respond with a two-pronged strategy.

Syria's balancing acts

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, like other Arab rulers, is determined to cling onto power in the face of the spreading revolts across the region. So far, that has meant killing more than 60 people in the first fortnight of protests.

Should we support a prison officers’ strike?

Prison officers across Britain have held meetings over the Tory government’s controversial plans to privatise jails.

Autonomism and the fight for change

My first real encounter with anarchist ideas, although I didn’t know it at the time, was at school when I was part of organising a student walk-out against the Iraq war.

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Reviews

‘Andrew Lansley Rap’ is howl of rage at injustice

MC NxtGen’s "Andrew Lansley Rap" has been doing the rounds on Facebook for several weeks now. It has resonated with young and old alike.

Tate Modern Miró exhibition

A major new retrospective exhibition of Spanish artist Joan Miró opens in London next week.

Young Hearts Run Free: Teen romance in an unconvincing 1970s

This low budget independent film is set in a Northumberland pit village during the decisive 1974 miners’ strike.

Killing Bono

Given its title, I hoped this film would be an ultraviolent critique of the U2 frontman’s nauseating neoliberal charity-mongering.

The Mill: City of Dreams

A site-specific play featuring a disused mill to explore migration and immigration around Bradford.

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What We Think

NHS jitters show that the Tories fear a battle

The Tories are in crisis over the NHS. They are running scared of mass opposition to their plans to hand over health service funding to GPs.

Handing over more power to nuclear firms increases hazards

The nuclear industry is dangerous, expensive and corrupt—and the Tories are hellbent on making it even worse.

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Other Categories

Leon Kuhn

Tim's view

Tim: Necessary cuts

Letters

Bombs aren’t the way to bring liberation in Libya People have always paid a very high price to gain their freedom.

Quotes from this week's news

‘Whichever party was currently in power, the NHS would need to be driving greater efficiency through the system’Labour leader Ed Miliband’s strident defence of the NHS

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