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Going, going... [WORKERS, OCT 2008]
If you want to understand Gordon Brown read the Tom Bower biography. Bower identifies the cowardice, indecisiveness, absenteeism, lack of leadership, innumerable wrong decisions seen well before he became Prime Minister, now epitomised in his collapsed public standing and confidence.
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United in self-delusion [WORKERS, OCT 2008]
Once again the public sector unions at the 2008 TUC agreed a unifying motion to deal with public sector pay. All will come together under the auspices of the TUC Public Sector Committee to determine a strategy of coordinated solidarity and industrial action to fight for wages. That may remind you of the 2007 strategy or of 2006 or of 2005 or the 1926 strategy.
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The TUC and the missing-card trick [WORKERS, OCT 2008]
The TUC has come and gone. Perhaps best summed up by the BBC report of how Unite, Britain’s biggest union created by merger and fictional membership claims, failed to deliver its block vote in support of the Prison Officers Association, which was fronting for the general strike strategy proposed by the “lefts”.
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Ofcom set to slash news [WORKERS, OCT 2008]
AS WORKERS went to press, workers in broadcasting were bracing themselves for a report on ITV from the regulator, Ofcom.
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Eurotrash - The latest from Brussels [WORKERS, OCT 2008]
The European Parliament has overwhelmingly adopted a proposal to allow automatic extradition to another EU country after someone is convicted by a foreign court in their absence.
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Housing - Mortgage lending slumps [WORKERS, OCT 2008]
THE LEVEL of mortgage lending in the UK slumped even further in August, according to figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders.
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Education - Academy suspends 40 [WORKERS, OCT 2008]
The head of Academy 360 in Pennywell, Sunderland, last month suspended 40 pupils in the first two weeks of term. This is a new academy, replacing a secondary school which was judged to be failing by the government.
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London Buses - Strike over pay [WORKERS, OCT 2008]
Bus drivers and other staff working for London bus operators First Capital East and First Centrewest went on a 48 hour strike from Friday 12 September in a dispute over their pay.
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Afghanistan - Killing civilians [WORKERS, OCT 2008]
The US/British occupation forces in Afghanistan killed 577 civilians between January and August this year (up from 477 in the same period last year), 384 by bombing.
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features

Exclusive: Hurricanes – Cuba fights back [WORKERS, OCT 2008]
The recent hurricanes that have caused so much loss of life and damage in the Caribbean and southern United States are considered by the Cuban Civil Defence Authority to be the worst for 60 years, partly because of their strength and partly because there were so many in close succession. Hardly surprising, then, that many people are asking the question ‘why does Cuba manage to keep the loss of life so low compared to other countries?’ The answer lies in both Cuba’s values and working class organisation.
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What’s happened to the financial markets? [WORKERS, OCT 2008]
The unravelling of financial markets that has been taking place now for the past twelve months should not be seen as a crisis but as a continuum of absolute decline, a trend first identified by our party in 1976. The current contradictory mess has one central feature, namely that Britain produces little new wealth and has been accessing international capital to create domestic credit.
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Book review: The Gods That Failed [WORKERS, OCT 2008]
The Gods That Failed: how blind faith in markets has cost us our future, by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson, paperback, 326 pages, ISBN 978-1-847-92030-0, Bodley Head, 2008, £12.99.
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2000: Nothing free about the free movement of labour [WORKERS, OCT 2008]
The subject of migration– both immigration and emigration – is one that many on the so-called left refuse to deal with. Yet it is an issue that won’t go away. In this groundbreaking article in November 2000, Workers took the issue head on. Who benefits? Not the workers here, and not the countries where the migrant labourers come from, either.
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TUC: Back to basics [WORKERS, SEPT 2008]
The annual congress of the TUC rolls round this month and it is time to take stock again of the health of the labour movement. The TUC agenda will deal with all the supposed pressing and politically correct agendas of the activists (not the members) who will be present.
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North Yorkshire, American style [WORKERS, SEPT 2008]
US INDEPENDENCE Day, 4 July, this year saw a large-scale demonstration outside the largest spying base in the world, Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire. Organised by the "Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases", the "Independence FROM America" event has been for 20 years an annual feature in the calendar of those concerned with US belligerence around the globe and British acquiescence in it.
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The NHS: We don't know how lucky we are [WORKERS, SEPT 2008]
"I heard on the radio the other day that, per head of population, Cuba had more people who were 100 years old than anywhere else in the world. The report also stated that the general life expectancy had risen to 80. Those two facts are remarkable, and would be remarkable in any other country, even incredible in most, but taking into account the context of life in Cuba with people struggling against the backdrop of the American economic and material blockade..."
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The politics of 'failure': Education is not just an academic question [WORKERS, SEPT 2008]
How is it possible for a school to be rated "Good" by OFSTED, be in the top 10 per cent of improved schools, to receive commendations for those improvements and then be branded a "failing school"?
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1979: Thatcher Out! [WORKERS, SEPT 2008]
Following the 1979 General Election, our Party quickly reassessed the political situation facing workers and concluded that it was not just business as normal for capitalism, that in fact the post war bourgeois consensus had been ditched and that Thatcherism was a dangerous governmental stance which was set to undermine and destroy the organised working class. We changed the basis of our line from 'Don't Vote, Organise for Revolution' to "Thatcher Out".
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[Thinking Man's Idiot]

WDIE No.84 Tuesday, September 30 2008

Legalised Bank Robbery: No to the Bailout of the Rich!

The government is due to emerge today as the second biggest mortgage lender in Britain, as it takes into state ownership the mortgage side of the Bradford & Bingley Bank. ...more

The Draft NHS Constitution:

Replacing Public Provision with an "NHS Constitution"

The Draft “NHS constitution” published in July, 2008, for consultation until mid-October is a plan conceived by Prime Minister Gordon Brown for a new “NHS constitution” as part of Lord Darzi’s review of the NHS in England. ...more

End Army Recruitment on Campus!
Stop the Criminalisation of Dissent!

Students at Newcastle College organised a protest on Friday, September 12, to demonstrate their opposition to military recruitment on campus. ...more

Miliband Defends the Indefensible

David Miliband’s keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference was presented in the media as that given by a "leader in waiting" but his remarks were mainly concerned with the government’s foreign policy and defending its record of interference and warmongering throughout the world. ...more

Gordon Brown at Labour Party Conference: Trust Me

That was how, against all the evidence, Brown’s speech at the Labour Party Conference could be summed up. He was the man to rescue New Labour, and this was the party of economic success. Should the working class and people go against their own experience and the facts of life? No! It is not Gordon Brown and New Labour that have any compass to find a way out of the crisis. It is precisely the programme and policies of New Labour that are throwing fuel on the fire of the all-round crisis, of the pay-the-rich outlook which is wrecking society, and for which working people are paying. ...more

Too Big to Fail Versus Moral Hazard

Henry C K Liu*, September 23, 2008 ...more

Militant Action against War

More than 5,000 marched through central Manchester on Saturday on the occasion of the Labour Party conference to denounce the government warmongering and to demand an end to crisis and war. The demonstrators demanded the end of the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and were motivated by the call to stop the spread of war and turn things around. ...more

Organise to Block the Slide to Meltdown and War!
Let’s Fight for an Anti-War Government!

The crucial task of the working class and people of Britain is to put an end to the warmongering and belligerence of the government and the political system which protects and brings to power the warmongers. Empowerment of the people is at the heart of the solution. ...more

Forthcoming Events

Palestine Aloud
A Cultural Celebration at the Cadogan Hall, London 22nd October, 7.30pm

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