Britain Follow

"When I led my men of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment into Iraq we believed we were going to do some good. It was to be a liberation. Now I believe we have to get out of Iraq. Not just the British, but the entire Western force."Colonel Tim Collins, whose speech made from a tank in Iraq was pinned to the wall of George Bush’s office

Iraqis have accused British special forces of planning a terrorist attack on Basra.

The RMT is the fastest growing union in Britain. What do you put that down to?

Forgotten Empire: the World of Ancient PersiaUntil 8 January 2006The British Museum, London£8/£4www.theBritishMuseum.ac.uk

Oil prices touch a record $70 per barrel, petrol prices hit £1 a litre and British Gas announces another crunching 14 percent price increase. Gordon Brown berates the oil producers’ organisation Opec, and John Prescott lectures the Americans on climate change.

The Gate Gourmet battle, now over five weeks old, sums up so much of what is wrong in Blair’s Britain. No other dispute received as many mentions at the TUC this week — and with good reason.

Millions of people across Britain will face a cold, expensive winter after energy companies announced their prices are set to rise by up to 14 percent.

In 1919 British prime minister Lloyd George warned the world’s statesmen at the Paris peace conference, "The whole of the existing order is being called into question by the masses from one end of Europe to the other."

Workers at the centre of two disputes that go to the heart of Labour’s anti-union, pro-boss policies came together on a confident, militant protest through Bristol on Friday of last week.

The British Medical Association (BMA) has become the latest organisation to sound the alarm over the financial crisis affecting many NHS trusts.

Protests were organised across Britain last week to oppose the government’s plans to return failed asylum seekers to Iraq.

The unofficial action by British Airways (BA) airside workers — baggage handlers, bus drivers and check in staff — is significant for all those with a vested interest in militant trade unionism. It exposes the current weakness of official union structures and culture.