News

I know where to put my cross next time

I HAVE recently begun again to read Socialist Worker, and I must tell you how refreshing it is to see the truth in print once again. During my career in the armed forces under both Conservative and Labour administrations I would regularly read and reread my copy of the paper in full view of the hierarchy.

Letters

Don't believe police thugs on any strikers LAST WEEK I watched a good documentary on BBC2 on the Grunwick strike of 1977. The programme openly admitted that the strike was sabotaged by right wing trade union leaders who did not want to divert attention away from the prospects of Labour winning the 1979 general election.

Special way to recall our great struggle

THE 20th anniversary of the 1984-5 miners' strike has reunited the miners in the Nottinghamshire area who dared to support the NUM union throughout the bitter dispute. After all these years the focus by some of the media is on why the NUM would not hold a national ballot. Over 80 percent of miners were already out on strike. They had voted with their feet.

Bigotry feeds the Nazis

SO MICHAEL Howard had his day out in Burnley. The local Conservatives gathered together all the Asian and black people they could muster, about 12 in total, and placed them where they would be on camera.

Workers still trapped in a world of no choice

MY FRIEND and I were discussing your article on how much (or little) things have changed since the 1840s (Socialist Worker, 31 January). The following day I went into my workplace (telesales) to find that the company had gone into liquidation that very morning and that we wouldn't be paid for the previous week's work.

Letters

1,400 school students left without hot food I recently started work in one of 27 schools in the London borough of Tower Hamlets which is part of a £127 million Private Finance Initiative (PFI) scheme. It was claimed that this would provide much-needed new buildings and urgent repairs throughout the borough. But it has proved to be a complete disaster.

Lies, damned lies and statistics on racism

RECENT NEWSPAPER headlines screamed that four out of ten whites did not want to have a black neighbour, after a poll by MORI. We live in a racist society. But if the headlines were accurate we would have taken a significant backward step to a more segregated society. The problem is not what people were asked or what people said. It is the way the findings were reported.

Disgusted at how Labour government is treating us

I AM speaking on behalf of a large group of women who have suffered an injustice in our fight for equal pay.

Letters

Avoiding the state Mike Gonzalez (Socialist Worker, 17 January) is right to describe how the Zapatista movement in Mexico has provided a great inspiration for activists across the world.

Challenging arguments over headscarf issue

MANY OF us here have watched with disgust how the French government has said it wants to ban Muslim women from wearing the headscarf in schools. However, we should not be complacent about Britain.

New asylum law would have been my death warrant

ASYLUM SEEKERS are a vulnerable group who are being scapegoated.

Children will still face poverty this Christmas

THERE WERE three events last week which emphasised Labour's continuing failure to address the horror of child poverty in this country.

Letters

Abortion – why we defend women's right to choose THE COURT case brought by trainee vicar Joanna Jepson to have a doctor charged for performing an abortion after 24 weeks because of "severe foetal abnormality" has caused uproar in the media.

Letters

The Israeli state’s racist policies are not in our name The British press has been full of stories lately about the reported rise of anti-Semitism, hatred of Jews, throughout Europe. It has said that criticism of Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians equals anti-Semitism.

Totalitarian vision of government child plan

THE CONSULTATION on one of the most cynical government Green Papers ever closes on 1 December. Yet there has been virtually no public debate about its contents. "Every Child Matters" is meant to be a response to the killing of Victoria Climbie, and the subsequent Laming Report.