NUJ protest at Russian embassy The NUJ journalist’s union protested outside the Russian embassy in London last Saturday, over the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
Reading extracts from David Blunkett’s diary took me back to a time when the Labour Party looked very different to the one we see today.
Britain is facing a sustained attempt to whip up full-blooded racism. Each day government ministers are clamouring to appear on camera denouncing Muslims and demanding their neighbours and teachers spy on them.
The government’s attacks on Muslims have led to a series of racist attacks across Britain, but there is also resistance and signs of a new fighting unity between Muslims and non-Muslims.
One of the more distasteful features of the wave of attacks on Muslims has been the sight of feminists lining up to support Jack Straw’s comments against the veil.
Ruth Kelly, New Labour’s communities secretary, told a meeting of council leaders and police chiefs last week that she wants them to target Muslim "hotspots" - schools, universities, mosques and colleges which are supposedly centres of extremism.
The government is asking staff at British universities to spy on "Asian looking" students and report their activities to Special Branch in order to counter "radicalisation" among Muslim students.
Phil Woolas, minister for "community cohesion" and race relations, last week called for Aishah Azmi, a Muslim teaching assistant who has been suspended for wearing the Islamic veil, to be sacked.
Migrant workers are risking their lives every day according to new research.
Around 100 trade unionists from the Unison, Amicus, PCS, UCU, NUT, T&G and GMB unions demonstrated outside the meeting room of Newcastle Trusts headquarters on Wednesday of last week. They were protesting at the summary suspension of NHS activist Yunus Bakhsh.
The battle to defend local government pensions is on again in earnest.
The Daily Star was forced to withdraw a spoof "Daily Fatwa" page just before the presses started rolling last night in the face of a revolt from the paper’s NUJ union chapel (branch).
