"NO TO privatisation" chanted 200 trade unionists and campaigners as they demonstrated through the streets of Milton Keynes last Saturday. The march was called by local trade unionists in the post workers' CWU union and the GMB union and was joined by children, parents and teachers from the local Save Our Schools campaign.
THE CIVIL service dispute in London is escalating. The PCS union has started to ballot its members in the Benefits Agency and Employment Service for indefinite strike action in over 50 Pathfinder offices. Staff are being balloted in offices from Exeter to Aberdeen.
THE NAZI National Front was humiliated in Sunderland for the second time in a month on Saturday. Having had a rally in August foiled by 200 protesters, they abandoned any attempt to march last weekend.
AROUND 100 people marched through Wellington in Telford, Shropshire, last Saturday. They were protesting against West Mercia police's failure to investigate properly the death of black man Errol McGowan, found hanged in July 1999.
THE GREEN Party annual conference took place in Salisbury last weekend in the wake of the party's best ever general election result. The Greens now have 49 local councillors, one member of the Scottish Parliament, two members of the European Parliament and three members of the Greater London Authority.
PORTSMOUTH Socialist Alliance passed this motion at its public meeting last week.
TONY BLAIR has cynically taken advantage of last week's tragic attack on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon to try to squash opposition to his privatisation drive.
AMAZINGLY, Tony Blair launched a vicious attack on refugees at the very start of the speech he refused to give to the TUC. In the week when we faced the prospect of a war that could create thousands more refugees, Blair attacked those trying to flee persecution and repression. At the same time his friend John Howard, the prime minister of Australia, was still refusing to let hundreds of refugees, who have suffered the most life threatening conditions at sea, land in Australia.
The full horror of the attacks in the US was breaking as Socialist Worker went to press. Very many innocent people had been killed or injured.
NEW LABOUR trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt went down like a lead balloon on the first day of the TUC conference in Brighton. Her whole speech was listened to in complete silence, even when she went out of her way to try to persuade delegates that she was "on their side". She got just a few seconds of polite applause at the end. There were sniggers from some delegates when she referred to "minor differences" with the trade unions.
