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"We want people in Britain to know the truth about Tony Blair's 'welcome' in West Africa. In Ghana a planned protest against Blair was not allowed under security laws. Yet, despite very short notice, hundreds of people crammed into a rally to speak out against his visit.

Hundreds of workers queued in the rain and biting wind outside the Caterpillar factory in the Durham town of Peterlee on Thursday morning of last week. They waited patiently, then one by one stepped forward to formally sign a declaration of "no confidence" in the managing director.

Why do socialists always go on about the working class? After all, workers are not always the poorest people in society-small farmers in the Third World are worse off than skilled workers in Britain. Neither are workers always militantly rejecting capitalism-many ordinary people read the Sun and seem to care more about football than politics. Workers are not even the majority of the world's population. But the working class is unique. Karl Marx called it the "special and essential product of capitalism".

"I know many of our union's members will be concerned about what the government is doing. Don't all rush to send motions to the union conference about the way we use our political fund. I can tell you the leadership of the union will be suspending funds for Labour unless there is a substantial change in policy." That was the message to union reps from John Keggie, the union's deputy general secretary, last week. He was speaking to reps from all over Britain. They had gathered the day after a ballot had overwhelmingly backed a national postal strike over pay.

The newspapers have been full of Tony Blair's forthcoming visit to Africa. A new report from the Campaign Against the Arms Trade has found that the value of British arms sales to Africa is set to quadruple over the next year. African nations spent £52 million on arms deals with British firms in 1999.

Socialist Worker will be available to a new-and its biggest ever-audience in newsagents across Britain from next week. Major newspaper distributors have recognised the growing mood for left wing ideas after two successful pilot projects, and will distribute Socialist Worker nationally.

British Airways is threatening to axe another 16,000 jobs. BA cut 7,000 jobs last year, but chief executive Rod Eddington admitted that more jobs would have to be sacrificed this year. Alpha Airways, which supplies in-flight meals and duty free shops, is also planning to sack some 1,000 workers.

Pay is suddenly a major issue-and not just for striking rail workers. Official talk of an economic boom in Britain, while much of the world slides into recession, has sharpened the feeling of millions of workers that they are being left behind.

Gosford Park, the new film from director Robert Altman, is a whodunit-style murder mystery set in a stately home in Britain in the early 1930s. It has a cast list that reads like a who's who of top British actors. But Gosford Park is more than an Agatha Christie-ish murder mystery.

Labour's assault on civil liberties New Labour is following the lead of Bush's US government in its assault on civil liberties. It appears that the new Terrorism Act is already being used to intimidate sections of the Asian community in Britain.

Shocking new figures highlight just who is greedy in Britain. The richest 10 percent of people in Britain spend seven times more than the poorest 10 percent, according to the government's Office for National Statistics.

British Paratroopers deliberately murdering unarmed civilians as they desperately try to run away or crawl to safety. This is what people who watched the recent TV dramas Bloody Sunday and Sunday would have seen.