SOME 175 teachers, parents and school governors launched a national campaign against SATs tests at a conference in London last Saturday. John Illingworth, a primary school head teacher from Nottinghamshire and a former president of the NUT union, summed up the confident mood of the day. He told the conference, "I have never felt as optimistic as I do now that we can get rid of these national damaging tests imposed on children. "East Midlands TV did a phone poll and found 95 percent of respondents against the SATs. We know the government will hit back hard to maintain SATs. But we should be confident that this is a campaign we can win."
FREE TRADE was attacked by thousands of protesters across Britain last Saturday. Events ranged from rallies and marches to fairs. The main focus of the day was to lobby MPs to make them aware of how unfair the present trading system is to poorer countries. Many of the marchers and protesters held "scales of justice" and tugs of war with unequal sides to illustrate the unfairness of the world trade system.
AROUND 120 people recently packed into a local meeting called by the Residents Against Port Expansion group in Harwich. The group has taken on the giant multinational Hutchisin Whampoa, which is planning to build a massive automated container dock. This will be just a few hundred yards from a working class residential area. The meeting had trade unionists, environmentalists and Socialist Alliance members.
PEOPLE PACKED into the council chamber in Birmingham last Sunday evening. But this was a very different type of meeting from the usual stuffy, bureaucratic gatherings of councillors. The chamber was filled with over 250 Birmingham residents - young and old, black, white and Asian.
THE RMT rail union took a historic step this week towards building a mass left wing challenge to New Labour. The union which moved the resolution setting up the Labour Party 103 years ago voted overwhelmingly at its conference in Glasgow to allow funding for socialist candidates standing against New Labour.
TONY WOODLEY, the newly elected general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), laid into New Labour at the union's conference in Brighton this week. He accused the government of surrendering to big business. He made a devastating criticism of Alan Johnson, former leader of the CWU union, who is now a New Labour minister.
He won't even allow tax debate NEWSPAPERS and most politicians united in an angry howl of rage last week. They were outraged by the suggestion that company directors presently grasping £500,000 a year might have to get by on £25,000 or even £50,000 less. A newspaper owner grabbing £2 million a year might lose £150,000! How would he survive! Last week in the corporate hospitality rooms at Royal Ascot the parasites from the City and big business quaffed £500 bottles of champagne and stuffed themselves with £300 lobster lunches.
THE PRESS give the impression that vast numbers of workers are hit by the top tax rates. In fact only around 10 percent of people pay the higher income tax rate of 40 percent levied on salaries over £34,515 a year. Very few of these are ordinary workers.
"UNIONS HAVE been mobilising and we expect good delegations from the postal workers' CWU and firefighters' FBU," says Matt Saywell. He is a member of Broxbourne Against Racism, which is mobilising for Saturday's march in the Hertfordshire town where the BNP has one councillor. "The GMB London Region is also supporting the march, as are local churches," says Matt. "We've had a really good response from local people."
WE REPORTED last week on the fight by 102 year old Winifred Humphrey against being evicted from the care home where she has lived for nine years. The callous owners of the home in Whitstable, Kent, have now thrown her out to make way for a fee-paying resident.
