Britain

"AS ANY inept DIY bodger could tell you, whitewash, applied carefully and thinly will last years. Too thick and it will flake off in no time." (Letter to The Guardian, 29 January)

LAST SUNDAY, 25 January, the founding convention of Respect took place and agreed to launch an electoral campaign across England and Wales, headed by George Galloway MP, for the June European and Greater London Authority […]

Police treatment of school students was not within the law

ISR member Karl Debbaut acquitted.

NEW LABOUR’S National Executive Committee (NEC) has recommended that Ken Livingstone should be readmitted into the party. That’s just three years after his expulsion in 2000 for standing as an independent mayoral candidate against Labour’s […]

Chris Flood, a Socialist Party member from Lewisham won a council by-election in his area yesterday winning a stunning 32% of the vote. He joins Ian Page, the other Socialist Party councillor on the local […]

ON WEDNESDAY 29 October around 1,400 people came to a meeting in London entitled ’British politics at the crossroads’. The audience were primarily political and anti-war activists and they had come to hear George Galloway […]

THE COURAGEOUS unofficial action by tens of thousands of postal workers in the last two weeks has shown that bullying bosses can be stood up to and forced to retreat.

George Galloway, MP for Glasgow Kelvin, has been expelled from the Labour Party for sticking to his principles and opposing Bush and Blair’s war against Iraq. This was a war – for oil, profits and […]

Defend the right to have an effective trade union

ISR coordinator faces six month jail sentence. Picket of the court – pictures. The case was adjourned.

Pictures by Paul Mattsson        

Leaflet by the Socialist Party

THE SCHOOL student and student strikes on the day war with Iraq began (Day X) will never be forgotten by the thousands who participated in them. All over Britain school students organised debates, actions, protests […]

Exclusive pictures from inside (19 pictures) and outside (12 pictures) the arms fair held in London.

It’s official low pay, long hours and being overworked kills. This is the conclusion of recent research into stress in the work-place.

Whilst the revelations flow thick and fast in the Hutton Inquiry, the central exercise for Blair and his cronies is how to deflect and avoid blame. A shoddy string of Pontius Pilates roll out before […]

Postal workers will shortly be balloted on taking industrial over an 18 month pay deal of 4.5%. If they vote for action this will be the first national action for 7 years and the first […]

Top bosses’ pay keeps going up and up. A recent survey by the Guardian newspaper found that the senior directors of the UK’s biggest 100 companies increased their income by a staggering 23% last year […]

Blair’s web of deceit continues to unravel

COMING ON top of the controversy surrounding weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), the death of scientist Dr David Kelly has brought about the most serious crisis that New Labour has faced since coming to power […]

THE REPERCUSSIONS of the RMT’s potentially historic decision were downplayed by New Labour spin doctors. But last week’s events show clearly how far the disenchantment and anger of ordinary workers towards New Labour have stretched […]

THE FOREIGN Affairs Select Committee spent four weeks investigating the reasons Blair gave for taking Britain into a war against Iraq. The title of their proceedings – ’The decision to go to war against Iraq’ […]

Seven Socialist Party members have been elected to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS).

Socialism 2003 took place over the weekend of the 28 and 29 June. Below are reports from the main rallies and interviews with participants.

GORDON BROWN’S Commons statement on the euro, the world’s biggest currency union, deliberately faced both ways. The government said it would try to "break down anti-euro prejudice", but it would not hold a referendum on […]

A SOLDIER from Warwickshire, Fusilier Bartlam aged 18, is being questioned following pictures of Iraqi POWs allegedly being mistreated.

AS TONY Blair jetted his way through the Gulf area, meeting Kuwaiti sheikhs, lecturing to British squaddies and kissing Iraqi children in one big photo-opportunity, evidence was growing that he and US president Bush lied […]

LOW-PAID hospital workers in east London, working for private contractors ISS Mediclean and Medirest have scored a victory in their fight for a living wage.

CLARE SHORT left Blair’s cabinet with a bang. Her resignation speech contained a withering attack on the "control freakery" of the Blairite "clique" at the top of the party and Blair’s "presidential" rule by "diktat". […]

TONY BLAIR tries to justify New Labour’s plans for foundation hospitals by harking back to the foundation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948, when working class people finally won access to health care, […]

TONY BLAIR hoped his Iraq ’victory’ would help New Labour in the 1 May elections. But rather than a ’Baghdad bounce’, it was more like a ’Baghdad trounce’. New Labour lost votes nationwide due to […]

GEORGE GALLOWAY’S name has been added to the notable list of those who stood against the might of the British political establishment and were subsequently ferociously witch-hunted and smeared.

FIFTEENTH OF FEBRUARY marks an historic day of anti-war protest worldwide. Never before have we seen a mass anti-war movement of this character before a war even starts. It is even bigger than the movement […]

MATTHEW RICHARDSON from Lincoln reports how, led by a fire tender and carrying a coffin to symbolise the demise of the fire service, 200 firefighters and supporters marched through the centre of Lincoln.

"This movement today, not Tony Blair, is speaking for the British people," declared Aslef member Andrew Murray, opening the Stop the War national conference. 800 activists came from local coalitions, political parties, trade unions and […]

MANY FIREFIGHTERS and other workers will have looked on bewildered as the FBU (Fire Brigade Union) executive council called off the eight-day firefighters’ strike due to begin on 4 December.

"THE GOVERNMENT has completely lost control of the agenda. This is no longer just a dispute between the FBU and the government: it has descended into a fight between the government and the whole union […]

Camera crews, reporters and members of the International Socialists (CWI) along with other Scottish Socialist Party members waited outside the Blackness Fire Station in Dundee for the 6 o’clock start to the first national fire […]

"IT SEEMS that every 25 years when the Queen has a jolly, we have a strike."

A SEA of up to 400,000 protesters flooded into the Embankment, London on 28 September to say ’No’ to war against Iraq.

Joan Littlewood, the radical theatre innovator who transformed British drama in the 1950s and 1960s, died on 20 September, aged 87.

New figures published last month by the Pesticides Residue Committee (PRC) for the British government have raised serious concerns over the safety of fresh fruit and vegetables, both imported and UK grown produce. The government […]

THIS WEEKEND’S Golden Jubilee celebrations survived a crisis – Buckingham Palace started burning down. After the public were evacuated and firefighters efficiently got the blaze under control, TV commentators asked the question on everyone’s lips: […]

David Nellist, 1417, 52.8%

“SO MUCH has been transferred to the national level, and so much of the financial control is retained there, that being asked to vote in a local election is like being asked to select which […]

“THIS IS a disaster” – that was Burnley Labour leader Stuart Caddy’s response to the BNP winning three council seats in Burnley. That feeling is echoed throughout the country.