Archive for March 2000

3 March 2000

Bannister doubles vote

ROGER BANNISTER, Socialist Party member and Campaign for a Fighting and Democratic UNISON (CFDU) candidate, has achieved a marvellous result in the UNISON general secretary election, writes Bill Mullins reports.

3 March 2000

Kosova: One year after NATO's war

Why did NATO go to war?: LAST MARCH, NATO embarked on a 79-day war against the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic. The Western media, with few exceptions, acted as enthusiastic cheerleaders. Even some on the Left shamefully...

3 March 2000

A real test for left Unity

London Assembly elections: A statement by the Socialist Party: LABOUR'S SELECTION ballot for its London mayoral candidate shows growing opposition to Blair's openly capitalist party...

3 March 2000

Mass Protest movement in Austria against right-wing

SONJA GRUSCH of the Sozialistische LinksPartei (SLP), Austrian section of the Committee for a Workers International (CWI) - the socialist international organisation to which the Socialist Party is affiliated) reports on the massive school students strike and demos against Austria's new right-wing c...

3 March 2000

The tireless Eleanor Marx

International Women's Day: 8 March: WILL THORNE of the Gasworkers' Union, writing in 1925 about Eleanor Marx's suicide on 31 March 1898 said: "But for this tragedy, I believe Eleanor would have still been living and would have been a greater women's leader than the greatest of contemporary women", writes Katrine Williams.

3 March 2000

STOP Labour's pay as you learn con

ACCESS TO university will become even harder for working-class students if new plans to hike up tuition fees materialise...

10 March 2000

Defend Jobs and Services

Across the country, local authorities are drawing up their budgets for the next financial year. For many council workers this will mean job cuts and further attacks on wages and conditions. Showing how...

10 March 2000

1900 - 2000: Fighting for a new workers party

ON 27 February 1900, the Labour Representation Committee met for the first time, beginning the Labour Party's 100-year history, writes Steve Score.

10 March 2000

London mayor elections: Another crisis for 'control freak' Blair

THE SOCIALIST Party welcomes Ken Livingstone's decision to stand as an independent. Many workers, already angry at New Labour's pro-big business policies, have been outraged at the blatant ballot-rigging...

10 March 2000

Trotsky's "planet without a visa"

"PLUS ÇA change; plus ça reste la même chose" (the more things change the more they stay the same ) as the French say, writes Peter Taaffe, Socialist Party general secretary.

10 March 2000

Livingstone breaks from Labour:

Time for a new workers' party: KEN LIVINGSTONE'S decision to stand as an independent candidate for London mayor will mean a big change in British politics, writes Jim Horton.

17 March 2000

Breaking the Grip of the Blairistas

KEN LIVINGSTONE'S decision to stand for London Mayor could open a new chapter for the British labour movement...

17 March 2000

Exposed: Labour's Health Scandals

IN THE general election, New Labour promised things would get better, but they're getting far worse, particularly in the health service. Here are the facts about Labour's NHS scandal:...

17 March 2000

Labour ditches another pledge: Build a Socialist Alternative

YOU DON'T have to watch David Blunkett's lips to know that Labour's promises aren't worth a fig. Labour government ministers can't be trusted one inch...

24 March 2000

Government starves public services and blames refugees

Build unity against Labour attacks WHEREVER YOU look in the media, from TV news to the smallest local paper, there are negative stories about asylum seekers, writes By Naomi Byron.

24 March 2000

How a socialist planned economy could work

"FROM EACH according to ability, to each according to need" - this is how Karl Marx characterised the way a socialist economy will work. But far from being preposterous or utopian, as the supporters of capitalism argue, such a vision of socialism is a practical and realisable alternative to the horrors of the market system. PETE DICKENSON explains.

24 March 2000

Nationalise Rover

TONY BLAIR supposedly shook with anger when told of BMW's plans to shut Rover. Maybe it was fear at the workers' anger that will be directed at this government...

24 March 2000

When Cuddly Ken was Red Ken

KEN LIVINGSTONE'S present-day popularity comes partly from the perception of his battles against Thatcher's Tories as Greater London Council (GLC) leader from 1981 to 1986, writes By Roger Shrives.

24 March 2000

Fight every Job Loss

AFTER THE BMW bosses sold Rover to vulture capitalists Alchemy, thousands of jobs in Rover's West Midlands plants were threatened. Cowley works in Oxford also cut production by over 50%...

31 March 2000

End the jobs slaughter

MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY faces tens of thousands of job losses. Whole cities could be decimated; estates like Blackbird Leys, next to the Cowley plant in Oxford, will be left with no jobs, a Rover shop steward writes.

31 March 2000

National Asset, so nationalise it!

DAVE NELLIST, Leader of the Socialist Group on Coventry City Council, and the former Labour MP for Coventry South-East, was asked to write an article about the Rover crisis for the Birmingham Post, which they carried on 22 March...

31 March 2000

The Battle that brought down Thatcher

Ten years on from The Demo, the 200,000 strong march which represented the pinnacle of the mass movement which defeated the poll tax, Steve Nally, Socialist Party member And Secretary of the All Britain Anti Poll Tax Federation in 1990, looks back at how the battle was won...

31 March 2000

Militant's Proud Role in defeating the poll tax

THE MASS non-payment campaign against the poll tax inspired millions to get organised and take action in their local areas...

31 March 2000

Nationalise Rover

§ No job losses, no asset-stripping of Longbridge and Rover.: ROVER SHOP stewards are committed to fighting the break-up of Rover. The demonstration this Saturday is just the beginning of the struggle. A Senior Steward spoke to The Socialist about the mood in the...