England Follow

THE LAUNCH of Unite Against Fascism in the north west of England made front page news in Manchester last week. The Manchester Evening News, the leading newspaper in Britain's third biggest city, gave headline coverage of Unite's press conference. It was held in Manchester Town Hall on Friday.

TENS OF thousands of university lecturers are to strike over pay across Britain and Northern Ireland next week. On Wednesday 47,000 lecturers belonging to the AUT union in the "old" universities, those which were never polytechnics, will be out. In addition to Wednesday's strike, lecturers in Wales will also strike on Monday, in England on Tuesday, in Scotland on Thursday and in Northern Ireland on Friday.

THERE COULD hardly be a better time for Socialist Worker to be available in universities, and soon many more students will see the paper. Over 40 WH Smith's and Menzies campus shops in England and Wales will be stocking the paper from next week, plus almost all Scottish universities.

"Sainsbury's – making life taste bitter." That is the message workers have scrawled on the locker room wall inside the supermarket's distribution depot in Haydock, north west England.

\"WE ARE now at the beginning of a journey which will replace the concept of a public service with a free market in higher education, a journey towards the Americanisation of English higher education.

AROUND 800 Sainsbury's depot workers in north west England struck just after Christmas after rejecting a pay deal.

WORKERS AT Sainsbury's distribution centre covering supermarkets across the north of England have voted to reject the company's pay offer and may be moving to a ballot for strike action.

GEORGE BUSH'S visit to Tony Blair's Sedgefield constituency in the north east of England last Friday went as badly for the warmonger as the rest of his visit. Around 1,000 people from across the north east protested against Bush and Blair. They gathered just 200 yards up the road from the Dun Cow pub where Bush met a few hand-picked residents.

PRIMARY SCHOOL teachers across England will begin voting next week for a boycott of the national SATs tests for seven and 11 year olds.

LET'S FACE it. The English language is crazy. There is neither apple nor pine in pineapple, nor ham in hamburger. Sweetmeats are confectionery. Sweetbreads, which definitely aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its contradictions, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

TENS OF thousands of lecturers in further education colleges across England and Wales are set to vote in the next two weeks on whether to accept a proposed pay and conditions package.

TRADE UNIONS in the north east of England are at the forefront of local campaigns against the Nazi British National Party (BNP). This was shown at the TUC Northern Region's anti-racism training day held in Sunderland last Saturday.