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THE BLAIR government is now in a deep crisis. The war has left a bloody and costly occupation behind in Iraq. The trail of lies and deception is now reaching back into the heart of the government. The movement built by the Stop the War Coalition struck the whole governing system with such force that its aftershocks are still reverberating through the corridors of power.

THE BRITISH Airways (BA) workers at Heathrow were right to walk off their jobs two weekends ago. This small group of low paid, mainly women workers defied the rich suits that run a huge multinational company.

TECHNICIANS AT one of Britain's biggest PFI hospitals, the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, walked out on Friday of last week. The workers, members of the Unison union, were furious after being told by their trust bosses that their jobs could be sold off to a private company.

STRIKE ACTION by different groups of workers in London councils continued this week. The battle is over a demand for £4,000 London weighting. Unison announced this week that it is extending future actions wider than the original boroughs targeted.

THE DRIVERS and support staff, all members of the RMT union, escalated action with a four-day strike beginning on Friday of last week. On the day the strike started over 400 Stagecoach workers staged a lively and very noisy march through the streets of Exeter to a mass rally addressed by Bob Crow, RMT general secretary.

UNION recognition victories at the Daily Telegraph and the latest by 200 journalists at Trinity Mirror in Wales - after a 15-year fight - show the transformation going on in the media industry. The latest issue of Better Read, the rank and file newspaper for media workers, analyses the progress made by the journalists' NUJ union and other unions in the last 12 months.

BALLOT PAPERS were due to be sent to Amicus members at Fujitsu Services in West Gorton in Manchester on Wednesday of this week. The workers are fighting against attacks on their union recognition and redundancy agreements, and for sick pay, an equal pay audit, and a pay rise. Media coverage of the workers' recent rally has already lifted spirits.

SOME 450 RMT union members working for ferry operator Caledonian MacBrayne's Clyde and Western Isles divisions started balloting this week for strike action over pay and hours.

THE NEWLY formed Westgate-on-Sea Socialist Alliance last week helped win an important victory. Kent County Council had sent letters to the parents of three pupils at St Crispin's infants school telling them they could not be offered a place at the local junior school, St Saviour's, because of lack of resources. The parents had approached their local councillor and their Tory MP for support but heard nothing more.

THE FIRST effort by the British National Party (BNP) to use their place on an English council to stop immigration ended in failure last week. The two BNP councillors for Tipton in the West Midlands proposed at a Sandwell council meeting that migration to the area to be "halted at the earliest opportunity".

POSTAL workers were on the brink of strike ballots or even unofficial walkouts as Socialist Worker went to press. Nationally, final talks with Royal Mail bosses were taking place to see if management would offer a decent pay deal that was not linked to crushing productivity demands.

NOBODY SHOULD expect the resistance to the US occupation of Iraq to go away after the killing of Saddam's sons last week. The actions against the occupying troops have accelerated and US troops are suffering increasing casualties.