Wales Follow

Labour selection row THE BLAIRITE Huw Irranca-Davies was last week selected as the Labour candidate for the Ogmore parliamentary by-election in South Wales. As a local Labour Party member I am disgusted that left winger Mark Seddon, clearly the most outstanding candidate, was excluded from the shortlist. A panel headed by the chair of the Labour Party, Charles Clarke, excluded Mark. Mark opposed the war in Afghanistan and Labour's Private Finance Initiative privatisations.

MORE THAN 20,000 elderly people died from cold-related illnesses in England and Wales last winter, despite the government's claims to be helping the poorest elderly people. Mervyn Kohler of Help the Aged says the number of winter deaths among old people is a "peculiarly British problem.

PRESSURE IS growing among Scottish Power workers to make their strike all out. An important shop stewards' meeting was scheduled for this Saturday in Penrith, where the progress of the dispute will be discussed and tactics debated. A series of three two-day strikes have seen very solid support from around 1,500 workers in North Wales, Merseyside and Scotland. There have been some localised power cuts.

Scottish Power workers struck for two days last week, and planned another two days action this week. The strike, involving 1,500 workers in North Wales, Merseyside and Scotland, has been totally solid. There have been big picket lines of up to 100 at a time in Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Over 1,500 power workers in Scotland, Merseyside and North Wales struck for two days this week. They are fighting for job security and decent conditions against their Scottish Power bosses.

Steelworkers are deeply saddened that three men died at the Corus plant in Port Talbot, South Wales, last week. Stephen Galsworthy, 26, and Andrew Hutin, 20, died instantly when tons of molten iron which was superheated to 1,000 degrees centigrade burst through the walls of the plant's number five furnace. Another man, in his fifties, died later.

Support for Bush and Blair's war against Afghanistan is ebbing fast. Tony Blair tried to claim that the bombing was "moral" in his speech to the Welsh assembly on Tuesday. But what is moral about slaughtering hundreds of people through aerial bombardment?

SCOTTISH POWER workers have started a ballot on strikes against attempts to cut jobs and worsen conditions. The 1,700 workers involved, who work both in Scotland and in Scottish Power's subsidiary in Merseyside and North Wales, are fighting plans to force a section of workers into a new company.

SCOTTISH Power workers are voting on strikes against attempts to cut jobs and worsen conditions. Scottish Power is a multinational which operates in North Wales and north west England as well as Scotland.

Teachers in London and Doncaster were to begin refusing to cover for a record number of vacancies this week, following overwhelming ballots for industrial action. The action, by members of the NUT and NASUWT unions, came just as a survey published in the Times Educational Supplement (TES) found that secondary schools in England and Wales are short of about 10,000 teachers. Teachers in more and more areas are voting for action. Ballots are under way in Leicester, Middlesbrough, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Southampton, Manchester, Reading and Kent.

Hundreds of sixth formers and other students greeted Tony Blair with a noisy protest against tuition fees outside the Welsh Labour Party conference in Swansea last week.

Around 3,000 Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) workers in the PCS civil servants' union went on strike on Wednesday and Thursday of last week over pay. Picket lines sprang up across England and Wales after management tried to impose a deal workers had rejected by 82 percent in a ballot.