Archive for September 2021
1 September 2021
Starmer's New Blairism consolidates
Within days of telling the Financial Times how "very proud" he was of the New Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from 1997 to 2010, the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer made it clear that his left-wing predecessor Jeremy Corbyn would remain suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party
1 September 2021
NSSN rally, September 2021
Click here for a report. Speakers included: Sharon Graham - newly-elected Unite gen sec; Sarah Woolley - BFAWU gen sec; Carmel Gates - Nipsa gen sec (designate); Joe Simpson - POA deputy gen sec; Joe Kirby - RMT NEC & offshore worker
8 September 2021
NHS and social care - make the rich pay, not the workers
Social care is in crisis and needs fixing. There's no doubt about that. Over 40,000 died from Covid in care homes during the pandemic in an overwhelmingly privatised system that puts profit before safety.
8 September 2021
Workers shouldn't pay for health and social care plans
As The Socialist goes to press, the Tories are in open warfare over Boris Johnson's plans on funding social care and the NHS in England.
8 September 2021
End service cuts and care charges
Fight for free, public, adult social care: Tory-controlled West Sussex County Council (WSCC) is proposing to cut Adult Services by 50% from £10 million to £5 million per year
8 September 2021
Families demand rights for care home residents
While government guidance now allows us to go to pubs and music festivals, go on holidays, and meet up with friends, care home residents are being kept under lockdown
8 September 2021
Fighting NEU leadership needed to tackle school funding crisis
Vote Martin Powell-Davies for DGS: The Tories have presided over damaging cuts to school funding that have disproportionately affected the most deprived schools, a recent report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies has concluded.
8 September 2021
Schools funding crisis fails vulnerable children
Schools face a special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) funding crisis, a £1 billion shortfall in funding
8 September 2021
University bosses push through pension cuts proposal
University bosses have pushed through their proposal to impose severe pension cuts to those in the 'USS' pension
8 September 2021
DWP: Demand safe working and more jobs
Resistance must be built to Tory attacks on the unemployed. In their drive to ramp up their harsh welfare system, they are prepared to put everyone's safety at risk. They plan to drag every claimant back
8 September 2021
Equity protest to save arts centre forces talks from Newham Council
Equity's protest to save theatre jobs at Stratford Circus arts centre was a big success. Around 50 joined a determined and positive rally on Saturday 28 August in Newham's historic Theatre Square.
8 September 2021
DHL workers to strike against wage theft
Unite members working for DHL at Jaguar Land Rover are balloting for strike action following the company's failure to pay workers the wages owed to them
8 September 2021
A man was stabbed in the back as he walked along Barton Street, the street I live on in Gloucester, recently
8 September 2021
Socialist change, not climate change
Save the planet - make capitalism extinct: Dave Nellist - Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition chair and Socialist Party national committee member - wrote the following letter to the Observer in reply to the Green Party Baroness Natalie Bennett's call for capitalist reforms to halt catastrophic climate change.
8 September 2021
Vigil: A nuclear sub murder mystery
TV Review: 'We are here to start a nuclear war. Don't waste our time with one bloody death', is the attitude of the officers on HMS Vigil towards the hapless detective DCI Silva in the opening episodes of this
8 September 2021
Why I joined the Socialist Party
Mainstream politics can feel like an anchor to the chest. I once walked the streets, and delivered leaflets for the promise of a socialist government in 2019.
8 September 2021
Building Youth Fight for Jobs in the South West
Young people face attacks on all fronts - sky-high rents, astronomical tuition fees, and the threat of mass job losses when furlough ends in September
8 September 2021
Whipps Cross hospital workers reject the 3%
80 plus Whipps Cross hospital workers, Unite members and Socialist Party members came out in protest against the humiliating 3% offered pay rise for all NHS workers on 25 August
8 September 2021
Libya - ten years after Gaddafi's overthrow
While the US, British and other western governments lick their wounds following their ignoble retreat from Afghanistan, after 20 failed years of 'nation building', another 'failed state', Libya, marks ten years since the West helped overthrow the Gadaffi dictatorship
8 September 2021
US Supreme Court refuses to challenge Texas abortion ban
Build a socialist fightback!: The US Supreme Court, in a five-four vote, allowed Texas's new anti-abortion law to take effect on 31 August
8 September 2021
Keep fascists out of Portland: Build a mass movement to fight the right
The danger of violent far-right hate groups has not disappeared along with Donald Trump. In Portland, Maine, members of the Proud Boys - a white supremacist hate group - have been meeting in Mathew's
8 September 2021
A pivotal moment for the trade union movement
This year's TUC Congress will provide the first public platform for newly elected Unite general secretary Sharon Graham.
8 September 2021
9/11 and the 'War on Terror' twenty years on
The 2001 al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on US soil prompted George W Bush and Tony Blair to invade and occupy Afghanistan
8 September 2021
Socialist Party national council - members enthused by excellent in-person meeting
Socialist Party members had to wait 552 days from the last opportunity they had to meet up in person
8 September 2021
Organising to defend our future: 9 October day of action
Young workers are less likely to have full-time, stable jobs, to own homes, and to have any savings to fall back on in a crisis.
8 September 2021
Bexley bin workers win big gains after six-week strike
Bexley bin workers in Unite have won improvements to pay and conditions
8 September 2021
Union action needed to make schools Covid safe
Staff, school students, and their families understandably want the new academic year to be a return to 'normality'
8 September 2021
Obituary: Roger Henshaw, comrade and class fighter
Wonderful tributes are pouring in following the sad death of my great friend and comrade, Roger Henshaw.
15 September 2021
NSSN trade union rally reflects working-class anger to fight back
The NSSN rallies and lobbies of TUC Congress have been annual since 2010
15 September 2021
Climate change, capitalism, and the struggle for socialism
Recent extreme weather has claimed lives and destroyed homes and infrastructure
15 September 2021
Social care plans: A sticking plaster instead of surgery
Social care has been in crisis for decades. Successive governments have deliberately diverted resources from care provision into the pockets of big business through privatisation. Despite the hype, Boris
15 September 2021
Unite young and old to defend the pensions triple lock
The UK State Pension is £179.60 a week, among the lowest in Europe. It leaves over 2 million pensioners in poverty.
15 September 2021
Take the wealth off the super-rich to fund: NHS and social care, pay and benefit rises
You couldn't make it up. As workers in health, local government and education are balloting on insulting pay offers from the government, Johnson and the Tories announce yet another pay cut: a 1.25% increase
15 September 2021
Campaigning for socialism at Oxford Brookes Uni
Socialist Party members held a stall at the Oxford Brookes freshers fair on Monday, raising the need for a new, fighting Socialist Students society on campus.
15 September 2021
Youth Fight for Jobs launches campaign in Brighton
11 September marked the beginning of Brighton's role in the national Youth Fight for Jobs campaign. Ten members of the Socialist Party took part following our successful first in-person meeting the previous
15 September 2021
Putting socialism on the map in Chichester
A new Socialist Party group has started in Chichester, which is, as anyone who knows the city would understand, a challenge to say the least
15 September 2021
Reclaiming Pride as protest in Nottingham
3,000 overwhelmingly young people from all over the East Midlands marched round Nottingham for Pride on Saturday 11 September.
15 September 2021
Solidarity to the striking workers at Charité and Vivantes hospitals in Berlin
Socialist Party trade unionists in the NHS have sent the following message of support to striking health workers in Germany.
15 September 2021
Fighting fund target reached: Help us continue to raise our banner and programme
At our recent Socialist Party national council (see socialistparty.org.uk) members were set the challenge of raising £5,000 to help reach our quarterly target of £25,000.
15 September 2021
On the frontline, and still fighting for the NHS
I've been working in medical imaging for eight years now. Even before we were struck by a global pandemic, we were struggling to keep up with the number of patients needing imaging, and waiting lists
15 September 2021
TV review - Grenfell: The Untold Story
Recently, my partner and I watched 'Grenfell: The Untold Story'. We watched footage of tenants, ahead of the 2017 tragedy, battle with 'the suits' over their living conditions: lifts out of order for
15 September 2021
Goodlord dispute: Labour's leadership weasled out of backing strike action
In April this year, Scott Hunter, a member of the Socialist Party and a striker at Goodlord, in east London, wrote to his local Labour MP, Emily Thornberry, asking for support for the workers fighting against 'fire and rehire'
15 September 2021
Save jobs and services - nationalise rail
Socialist Party members and supporters of the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) joined the RMT transport union's protest outside Waterloo station, London, against cuts to South West Rail services
15 September 2021
Weetabix - workers have had enough
Engineering workers, members of the Unite union, will walk out for 48 hours from 21 September at two sites - Kettering and Corby, both in Northamptonshire.
15 September 2021
Scrap tuition fees - end university marketization
The Covid pandemic has laid bare the marketised tuition-fee model
15 September 2021
Nuclear Folly: A New History of the Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban missile crisis in 1962 is far from underrepresented in books and media. But 'Nuclear Folly' uses fresh material provided by newly declassified files from the KGB archive, shedding light on
15 September 2021
Oaks Park school: Redbridge Labour council backs strike-breaking bullies
Illegal strike-breaking, a dossier of testimonials about management bullying, and victimisation of a union rep who fought for Covid safety
15 September 2021
Deaths of despair: Health crisis - capitalism in the dock
Health services on every continent and in practically every country have struggled to stem the rising numbers of Covid victims
15 September 2021
What's behind the worker shortages, and what can be done about it?
'Job openings' are at 1.66 million, according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation
15 September 2021
The government doesn't seem to want to budge on removing the £1,000 a year uplift
15 September 2021
Returning to campus: Students need to fight
As we progress through the month of September, students and young people across the country will be preparing themselves to return to their respective studies.
15 September 2021
Carmarthenshire Unison: 'Recognise our union!'
Union members in Plaid Cymru-run Carmarthenshire Council, Wales, are demanding a Trade Union Recognition Agreement (TURA) at Cwm Environmental, which is wholly owned by the council.
15 September 2021
We need a new political party for workers and youth
Boris Johnson's lies about 'leveling up' working-class communities are being destroyed as the austerity is stepped up. Higher national insurance, Universal Credit cuts and a freeze on the income tax allowance will take £1,040 a year away from the average supermarket worker.
22 September 2021
Low pay, benefit cuts, tax increases, price rises: The bosses and the Tories are putting millions of workers through even more hell. The cost of living has soared with inflation rising to 3.2% - following its highest-ever recorded monthly increase. Rent
22 September 2021
Interview: Bakers' union to vote on Labour disaffiliation
Earlier in the year, members of the Bakers' union (BFAWU) responded to a survey in favour of disaffiliating from the Labour Party
22 September 2021
Workers at 13 colleges to strike over pay
University and College Union (UCU) members at 13 colleges across England will begin strike action on 28 September in a dispute over pay, leading the way for other public sector workers seeking to fight back
22 September 2021
Over 200 NG Bailey sparks and fitters walked off site at AWE Burghfield on 20 September over suspected blacklisting
22 September 2021
Yorkshire Youth Fight for Jobs relaunched
Work and education are being closed to us: The Youth Fight for Jobs (YFJ) campaign was relaunched in Yorkshire at an online public meeting on 17 September, in anticipation of the end of the furlough scheme
22 September 2021
Oaks Park strikers call eleven days' more action
The Oaks Park picket line on 15 September was as angry and determined as the day it began, when school workers said 'enough' to bullying management and the unjust letting go of National Education Union (NEU) rep Keiran Mahon
22 September 2021
Fighting evictions in Cornwall
Violent County Court bailiffs and police were no match for a well-organised and determined human wall defending a private tenant from eviction.
22 September 2021
Leeds taxi drivers and disabled passengers unite to fight station changes
The anger of taxi and private hire drivers at the Labour-run council is palpable. Socialist Party members joined drivers in the Unite union, disabled taxi users and Unite Community activists to protest
22 September 2021
York: Non-binary and trans rights protest
On 19 September, 40 people protested for the legal recognition of non-binary people, and to end trans discrimination under the current Gender Recognition Act
22 September 2021
Who pays for the climate crisis?
It is the world's working class and poor that will suffer the most from climate change. Just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions. But in carrying out their 'plan' to tackle the
22 September 2021
The problems that climate change will pose for food production are already being felt in Madagascar. The country's south has faced four years of back-to-back droughts which have wiped out harvests. As
22 September 2021
An edited version of the following letter, sent by Socialist Party executive committee member and Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition National Agent Clive Heemskerk, was published in The Guardian.
22 September 2021
Life expectancy falls - a condemnation of capitalism
I often think when I hear that a member of the royal family has died at the ripe old age of 101 - 'didn't they have a good innings, they mustn't grumble!'
22 September 2021
Tax fraud could be over £20 billion annually
The think tank Taxwatch estimates as much as £15.2 billion of UK tax lost in 2020 was from fraudulent activity - almost half of uncollected income.
22 September 2021
Socialists and the four-day week
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, with fears of rising unemployment as the furlough scheme is wound up, and the full extent of the economic scarring from the pandemic is revealed, there are also increased demands around improved work-life balance after a year of many working from home
22 September 2021
Opinion polls in the last weeks before the 26 September German general election have shown rapid changes, especially for the two main contenders - the conservative Christian Democrat CDU-led bloc and the Social Democratic Party (SPD)
22 September 2021
Gleision mine deaths: Still fighting for justice
South Wales thought the days of mining tragedies were in the past. The death toll during almost two centuries of mining is over 6,000, even more when Aberfan is included. Ten years ago, in September 2011,
22 September 2021
New strike dates in EMR guards dispute
RMT East Midlands Railway train guards have started a new series of strikes in their long-running dispute about pay cuts for new staff and safety concerns
22 September 2021
MOJ pay deal accepted - we demand 10%
PCS members in the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) have just voted to accept a deal recommended by the leadership which trades conditions for pay
22 September 2021
Socialist Students: Youth lit up when they saw us
Socialist Students have received an enthusiastic response from students at Birmingham City University and its neighbouring colleges
22 September 2021
W Sussex 'disability tax' - protest not going away
Warrior Carers protested outside West Sussex County Hall on 15 September. We were protesting about the unfair client contribution, also known as the 'disability tax'.
22 September 2021
Tory cuts to UC: we need a union fightback
From 6 October Universal Credit will be cut by £20 per week
22 September 2021
GMB members have voted 93% in favour of rejecting the 3% pay deal for NHS workers
22 September 2021
In October 2011, unemployment hit its highest level for 17 years, with youth unemployment heading for 1 million
22 September 2021
TV Review - Help: Heart-wrenching portrayal of Covid care home crisis
'Help' is a heart-wrenching story of a care home in Liverpool for people with dementia. When the Covid-19 crisis hits the home, the main protagonist, Sarah, is faced with loss, pressure and difficult
22 September 2021
End the teaching workload crisis
Vote Martin Powell-Davies for DGS: Many teachers leave the profession due to work pressure
22 September 2021
Energy market chaos makes the case for nationalisation
Millions of gas consumers face price hikes and uncertainty in supplies
22 September 2021
Workers' politics won't come from Labour
In addressing TUC Congress, Sir Keir Starmer claimed that "Labour will always stand with the unions", standing "shoulder to shoulder" with them over vicious attacks such as 'fire and rehire'. But the reality is very different.
23 September 2021
24 September 2021
New openings for militant trade unionism
The victory of Sharon Graham as general secretary of Unite has struck the labour movement as a thunderbolt. This can be a pivotal moment.
28 September 2021
Starmer consolidates post-Corbyn Blairite transformation of Labour
Mandelson once said New Labour was "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich". He is now intensely happy about this year's Labour conference.
28 September 2021
Join 'Youth Fight for Jobs' protests on 9th October
Join 'Youth Fight for Jobs' protests on 9th October
Join 'Youth Fight for Jobs' protests on 9th October
29 September 2021
A cruel cut to the loan payback threshold: In another determined effort to take money off the working class to pay for the pandemic, the government is set to slash the threshold at which students pay back their loans
29 September 2021
Driver shortages - a view from the inside
Millions of workers have been travelling to work, hoping that they have enough fuel to get home or complete the school run
29 September 2021
One million will be 10% worse off due to the £20-a-week Universal Credit cut. And with income going down, the costs of food, gas and electricity are going up. The poorest tenth of the population spend
29 September 2021
College workers walk out in pay dispute
"We are the ones who can change things": University and College Union (UCU) members at 13 colleges across England began strike action on 28 September in a dispute over pay
29 September 2021
More market chaos: York students given digs in Hull
Over 100 incoming University of York students have been burdened with a 72-mile round trip between the university and their accommodation
29 September 2021
Bromsgrove protest for NHS fair pay
On Saturday 12 September, I spotted in the Bromsgrove Advertiser that a Nurses United protest was taking place in Bromsgrove at Tory Health Minister Sajid Javid's party office
29 September 2021
London tenants v greedy contractors
On 23 September, the Socialist Party and Waltham Forest Housing Action Network in east London responded to the call from tenants at John Walsh and Fred Wigg towers to help them keep their car park.
29 September 2021
Flexibility to suit workers not the bosses
'Agile working' is often described as an approach to work which entails maximum flexibility and minimum constraints
29 September 2021
Black history month and its relevance today
Since 1987 in the UK, October has been Black History Month. It's a month specifically to learn, share and celebrate the proud black history of Britain. For socialists, we focus on remembering the struggles
29 September 2021
The Committee for a Workers' International (CWI) livestreamed a rally on 26 September on the critically urgent theme of a 'socialist solution to the capitalist climate catastrophe'.
29 September 2021
With attacks on Universal Credit, the rising cost of energy, and the regressive changes to national insurance - a secure job with decent pay has never been more important for young people
29 September 2021
Fightback to save Birmingham GKN jobs!
Rank-and-file members of Unite in the Chester Road GKN workforce in Erdington, Birmingham have voted overwhelmingly for an all-out strike
29 September 2021
Sabina Nessa vigil: End violence against women
Six months and here we are again, remembering another woman murdered. That was one of the big emotions on the vigil for Sabina Nessa near her home in Kidbrooke, south London.
29 September 2021
German election: A change of capitalist government, but disaster for Die Linke
The result of the Bundestag elections on 26 September heralds a new political period for Germany. The two big 'peoples parties', the social-democrat SPD and Christian-democrat CDU/CSU bloc, have massively
29 September 2021
The miserly 3% 'pay rise' for NHS workers is amounting to effectively nothing.
29 September 2021
NEU deputy general secretary election
A fighting strategy is needed to win on workload, pay and cuts
29 September 2021
Weetabix's profits have increased yet the company is intent on using 'fire and rehire'
29 September 2021
Youth climate protests are back
On 24 September, students walked out of their classes to protest
29 September 2021
Socialist Students ran campaign stalls during freshers.
29 September 2021
29 September 2021
Queues at petrol stations, fuel bills rising, the risk of empty supermarket shelves for Christmas - all symptoms of a sick system.
29 September 2021
Preparing for no-cuts People's Budgets
TUSC is promoting the idea of local conferences to draw up no-cuts People's Budgets
12/01/22 Obituary - Pauline Wall11/01/22 Corbyn's Peace and Justice Project
25 Jan Cardiff West Socialist Party: Anarchism and Socialism
26 Jan Gloucestershire and Swindon Socialist Party: Building a working-class political voice
26 Jan Hackney & Islington Socialist Party: Marxism and the State
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