Archive for May 2001

4 May 2001

Global capitalism: A System Under Siege

MILLIONS OF people protested against capitalism worldwide on May Day. According to Tony Blair many did so in London because they wanted confrontation with the police and supported "spurious causes"...

4 May 2001

Class struggle makes a comeback

What we think: TEN YEARS ago, after the Berlin Wall fell and Stalinist "Communism' collapsed the capitalist system's highly-paid commentators proclaimed the "end of history": the capitalist system was triumphant and class struggle was over...

4 May 2001

Police provocation resisted

HANNAH SELL, CHRIS MOORE and JOHN REID report from London's May Day anti-capitalist protests: ON ALL the demos there were many young people who'd never been on protests before. Probably over 10,000 people protested.

4 May 2001

Public Health Not Private Profit

Stop the fat cats making a killing out of health: AT A time when GPs are having to take action to protest about their workload, ROBIN CLAPP describes the state of hospital services in Bristol, a situation repeated throughout Britain...

4 May 2001

Baby Bonds: Labour's election gimmick

NEW LABOUR have launched the big idea for its second term. Now we are to get "baby bonds". At an estimated annual cost of £480 million, the government will open a trust fund for new babies of £250 to...

4 May 2001

1926 general strike: A showdown between the classes

IT IS 75 years since the general strike, when four million out of the five and a half million organised workers struck for nine days in May 1926...

4 May 2001

Foot and mouth disease outbreak: Crisis On Tony's Big Business Farm

THE FOOT and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak that started on 2 February has caused a major political crisis...

4 May 2001

Japan: Koizumi's mission impossible

AS JAPAN'S rulers struggle to extricate the economy from its decade-long morass, hopes have been placed in newly elected Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi...

11 May 2001

Get Tough On The Nazis

Leicester, Oldham, Bermondsey... NEW LABOUR and the Tories are competing with each other to be 'tough on crime' and 'tough on asylum-seekers'...

11 May 2001

An alternative to the lesser of two evils

BOOKMAKERS PUT Labour as high as 40-1 on to win the forthcoming general election. Polls estimate Labour could get a majority of over 200 on the current projections of how people will vote...

11 May 2001

Son of Star Wars: Stepping up the nuclear arms race

ANTI-NUCLEAR protesters and millions of working-class people will oppose George Bush's new defence strategy, based on the National Missile Defence system (NMD - dubbed 'Son of Star Wars'), writes Chris Newby.

11 May 2001

Vote Socialist

Tony Blair - Bosses' puppet, photo Alan Hardman

...because nobody pulls our strings
TONY BLAIR has finally called the election. Socialist Party candidates will present a positive socialist alternative to counter the same old cynical pro-big business policies of Labour, Tories and Liberals.

11 May 2001

May Day 2001: Detained but defiant

THE MONOPOLY board game was the theme of London's May Day protests. Cyclists met at King's Cross opposing the private rail companies and demanding decent public transport, writes Manny Thain.

11 May 2001

YSA: Challenging capitalism, challenging the state

YOUNG SOCIALIST Action (YSA) played a significant role in this year's anti-capitalist May Day protests in London, writes Zena Awad and Kieran Roberts.

11 May 2001

A merging of forces beneficial to the working class?

ON 1 May the membership of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in Scotland wound up its separate organisation and became part of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP)...

11 May 2001

Philippines - People Power III?

DAYS OF angry street demonstrations in the Philippines capital Manila culminated in an attack on the presidential palace in the early hours of 1 May, writes Clare Doyle.

11 May 2001

Tory pre-election blues

THE TORY Party is in disarray. The party's right-wing racist policies are showing up leader William Hague as a desperate politician who'll plumb any depths to win votes - but very unsuccessfully! A month...

18 May 2001

Vote For A Socialist Alternative

Fed Up With Labour's Empty Promises?: LABOUR still haven't delivered on their previous unambitious election pledges but they now want us to swallow five new key pledges in good faith...

18 May 2001

Tuition fees no way! Fight Threats To Non-Payers

COVENTRY UNIVERSITY has backed down from its threat to carry out mass exclusions of students for non-payment of fees, writes Naomi Byron, Save Free Education (SFE).

18 May 2001

Taxing our patience

THE FIRST week of election campaigning has been dominated by arguments over public spending. Hague's arguments about "tax cuts being an idea whose time has come" - hoping to emulate George W Bush -...

18 May 2001

Major parties leave students in debt

A SURVEY for the Times Higher Education Supplement shows massive opposition to tuition fees and the abolition of the grant, writes Kieran Roberts.

18 May 2001

Nellist launches Socialist Alliance manifesto

DAVE NELLIST, Socialist Party councillor and national chair of the Socialist Alliance, along with other Socialist Alliance prospective parliamentary candidates, presented the Alliance's manifesto outside Millbank Tower - the HQ of New Labour - on Wednesday 16 May...

18 May 2001

Women fed up of 'hard' Labour

A YOUNG Women's Christian Association (YWCA) survey says that one-third of women aged 18-30 probably won't vote in the general election, writes Clare James.

18 May 2001

Italian general election: Mr Big buys his way to power

RIGHT-WING BILLIONAIRE Silvio Berlusconi, has won the Italian general election...

18 May 2001

Council workers back anti-cuts candidate

A MASS meeting of 400 council workers in Hackney has agreed to continue their campaign against attacks on their pay and conditions, writes Jim Horton.

18 May 2001

New Labour's 'ten year' plans

Election 2001: WE CARRY on our series on what the main political parties are offering with an analysis of New Labour's programme. JANE JAMES takes a look at Blair's hollow ideas...

25 May 2001

Keep The Private Vultures Out

NHS... Education... Public Services... Tube... LABOUR'S GLOSSY new manifesto says they want to contract state-run services out to private-sector firms...

25 May 2001

Break The Chains Of Poverty

No To Low Pay: LAST WEEK I met an 18-year-old girl who was on the same training course as me. Before she was 18 she worked in a sandwich bar opposite a Birmingham factory and was paid £2 an hour, writes Clare Wilkins, Birmingham.

25 May 2001

Labour's union links crack at seams

The Socialist - What we think: LAST WEEK'S decision of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) to loosen its financial links to the Labour Party is major step forward...

25 May 2001

Asylum - Labour and Tories up the stakes

THE SECOND week of the general election has seen the parties descend into further Americanisation of political campaigning...

25 May 2001

Fat Cat at Wakefield Mayor's Ball

"AT LAST, I've got someone I can vote for!" exclaimed the traffic warden as he looked over to the Socialist Party stall being set up outside Wakefield Town Hall, writes Alistair Tice.

25 May 2001

Socialist Alliance hits the airwaves

THE SOCIALIST Alliance election broadcasts went out on Tuesday 22 May and generated a huge response from people interested in socialism...

25 May 2001

Students and Socialist councillors fight fees' threats

A LIVELY demonstration of around 40 people gathered on Wednesday 16 May to protest against Coventry university's punitive actions against students unable to pay their fees, writes Naomi Byron.

25 May 2001

Green Party - A serious Left alternative?

THE PROSPECT of voting for one of the three main pro-capitalist parties in this election makes many working-class people cringe, writes Amrita Huggins.

25 May 2001

Plaid Cymru - good old fashioned socialism?

IN ITS manifesto, Plaid Cymru/The Party of Wales (the Welsh nationalist party), aims to appeal to disenchanted Labour voters, a programme described by President Ieuan Wyn Jones as "good old fashioned socialism"...

25 May 2001

SNP: Standing up for big business

THE SCOTTISH National Party's (SNP) election slogan is "Standing up for Scotland". A more appropriate slogan would be 'standing up for big business', writes Phillip Stott.

25 May 2001

Law and order: Soft on a criminal system

THE THREE main parties of big business have all made law and order a central plank of their election programmes...

25 May 2001

No to a bosses' Europe: Fight for workers' unity

ONE OF the media's big general election issues is whether Britain should join the European Monetary Union (EMU) during the next government, writes Judy Beishon.

25 May 2001

Middle East - Edging closer to all-out war

FOR THE first time since the start of eight-month-long second Intifada, Israeli air-force F16 jets were used to bomb targets in the Palestinian Authority killing ten Palestinians in the process, writes Kevin Simpson.