Tories

Why the left is celebrating in Germany

01 October 2005
The election in Germany has plunged the political establishment into crisis and has led to the biggest breakthrough of a radical left force since the Second World War. Gerhard Schröder’s SPD, similar to Britain’s New Labour, stood with a programme defending hated measures to attack the welfare state — Agenda 2010 and Hartz IV. The Tory CDU and its would-be coalition partners, the FDP, had programmes saying they would implement even harsher neo-liberal measures.

An assault on the very basis of the NHS

24 September 2005
The last Tory government used to fantasise about privatising the whole of the National Health Service. Tony Blair is fulfilling the Tories’ maddest dreams.

Respect Leytonstone ward by-election result

16 July 2005
Waltham Forest Respect was delighted to receive nearly 15 percent of the vote in the Leytonstone ward by-election on Thursday 14 July. We came a strong third, well ahead of the Tories and the Greens, whose votes collapsed. We only had four weeks to build our campaign, and the lessons from the doorstep are clear — where we were able to canvas we could quite easily turn people towards Respect as a clear alternative to the inadequate policies of our Labour/Lib Dem council. The timescale between now and the borough wide council elections in May is obviously far longer, so our campaign effectively starts now! We are planning on holding meetings on pressing issues such as managing Olympic inves

An exciting opportunity for the left

04 June 2005
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.

The general election was a bitter blow for Blairism

21 May 2005
Of themselves, elections don’t change anything. They act as a barometer of the deeper social forces at work. But that doesn’t mean that elections are irrelevant. Only a fool would say that the victory of the Tories under Margaret Thatcher in 1979 had no effect on British society.

Challenge to New Labour in Wales

05 May 2005
"A vote for anyone else will let the Tories in" has been a theme of Labour’s national campaign. That’s desperate anywhere — but it reaches new depths in South Wales’s Blaenau Gwent, the seat centred on Ebbw Vale.

Good Respect vote will start Labour panic

05 May 2005
When New Labour tells the voters of Blaenau Gwent — Labour majority 19,313 — that they must vote for the Blairite candidate or the Tories might win, it is scarcely convincing.

West Ham’s rebel history

05 May 2005
In 1892 a man was elected to parliament who transformed the political landscape. Breaking with the two established mainstream parties of the day — the Tories and Liberals — he became the first independent Labour MP, a worker representing other working people in parliament.

Don’t miss Socialist Worker during the election

23 April 2005
"Socialist Worker’s election coverage is a real help to the Respect campaign," says Oliur Rahman, Respect candidate in Poplar & Canning Town, east London. "Last week’s article exposing New Labour’s lie that a vote for Respect will let the Tories in was a must for every campaigner."

Whoever is elected, ending the occupation is still the first priority

23 April 2005
Despite the best efforts of the Labour and Tory leaderships to keep it off the agenda, the criminal war against Iraq, and the continuing occupation of the country, are critical election issues.

Brown offers Blairism Mark II

23 April 2005
"Vote Blair and get Brown," the Tories used to say. Now they are keeping quiet about this because Gordon Brown is turning out to be one of New Labour’s major assets.

We are determined to defend our multi-racial society

16 April 2005
The Tories are so clearly staring defeat in the face that they have turned to the oldest trick in the book — playing the race card.

The election is a chance to change the political landscape

09 April 2005
Vote Labour or wake up with Michael Howard in office on 6 May — that’s the cry from New Labour. Accordingly, a poll on the morning the election was called showed a Tory lead.

Travellers have been made objects of hatred

02 April 2005
The Tory leader, Michael Howard, talks about the Holocaust and how he’s Jewish, but he’s a very racist man. He’ll never be able to tell Gypsies that he’s not. He’s the man who said in 1993 to stop building council sites, and that Travellers should go and buy their own land and live on it. But now he’s twisting it all.

Brutality in Britain’s detention centres exposed

05 March 2005
NEW LABOUR and the Tories compete over who can be "toughest" on asylum seekers. This creates a climate which encourages racist and violent staff at detention centres to feel they can act with impunity.

The same old racist lies about immigrants and disease, a century on

26 February 2005
"Small pox and scarlet fever have unquestionably been introduced by aliens within the past few months on a large scale." You could easily think I’m quoting Tory leader Michael Howard.

Another bogus health and immigration story from the Daily Mail

26 February 2005
Last week the Daily Mail splashed the headline "Our NHS, Not the World Health Service" across its front page. It was the latest attempt by the Tories and the right wing press to whip up a panic over refugees.

Blair’s sixth pledge that can only fuel racism

19 February 2005
The launch of Labour’s election pledge card has shown just how low the party has sunk in its craven tail-ending of Tory and tabloid racism. The card was originally set to carry five pledges—as in 1997 and 2001. These would broadly cover education, health, the economy, crime and the family—also in line with previous elections. But at the last minute, a sixth pledge was added—"Your country’s borders protected." Labour has promised "ID cards and strict controls that work to combat asylum abuse and illegal immigration".

A track record of racism

12 February 2005
Labour governments have capitulated to immigrant-bashing before. On each occasion the result was spiralling racism. In the 1964 general election, the Tories ran a vicious and nakedly racist campaign in the Labour seat of Smethwick.

Labour and Tories both play the race card

12 February 2005
There was an item on the news at the weekend where a reporter went out on the streets and read out quotes from Labour on immigration. The reporter asked people, "Which political party said this?" Every single person thought it was the Tories. This is Labour’s strategy on every single issue — welfare, trade unions, war. They’re in the business of winning elections by out-Torying the Tories. But this whole argument on immigration is based on a lie. Every economic study shows that immigrants put far more into the economy in taxes and labour than they take in benefits.