Issues Follow Follow

Picture the scene. It’s 1994 at the headquarters of the World Bank. A couple of Christian Aid lobbyists are, if not exactly being muscled out of the building, very much being asked to leave.

Everyone, including the movers of the motions, was taken aback by the vote at April’s conference of the AUT lecturers’ union to boycott certain Israeli universities.

The conference of the Natfhe lecturers’ union overwhelmingly endorsed merger with the AUT union last weekend.

Workers at Ambala Foods in Stratford, east London, struck for two days last week.

.;n¬.º¬rers at Dunstable College in Bedfordshire picketed a meeting of the local Learning and Skills Council last week to protest at a £300,000 cut in funding.

An incredible referendum turnaround last Sunday in France saw 55 percent of voters reject the European Union proposal for a European constitution.

The vote will have a major impact in France. The Tory prime minister Raffarin was sacked on Tuesday of this week. President Chirac announced a new government in an attempt to calm the situation.

Around 700 people, young and old, marched around the historic centre of Montpellier last Sunday night, celebrating the no victory in the referendum.

Working people in France have delivered a defiant no to privatisation, neo-liberalism and Blairite policies across Europe.

Every day 30,000 children die from the diseases of poverty — and none of the proposals from Tony Blair, Gordon Brown or the other G8 leaders will do anything effective to halt those deaths.

Labour backbenchers face an early opportunity — and a test. The second reading of Charles Clarke’s identity card bill is expected soon. New Labour’s majority is reduced to 67 and with the opposition parties saying they will vote against the bill, the votes of just 34 Labour MPs could be enough to scupper it.

Canterbury Make Poverty History took to the streets of Canterbury last Saturday with a march to a music and politics festival in a city centre park.