The judicial House of Lords has recently ruled that pleural plaque (scarring of the lung - a condition caused by breathing in asbestos) is not an industrial illness for which compensation can be claimed. This reverses twenty years of common law practice. What do the Law Lords know about it? Asbestosis related conditions are not exactly an occupational hazard for judicial bigwigs.
 

Even the bourgeois press has admitted that the sudden shift in world economic fortunes has brought Marxism ‘back from the dead’ – the Sunday Times ran an article last week under the title ‘The credit crunch is bringing Marxism back into fashion’. From our perspective, Marxism is not a fashion or a strange breed of animal, as the bourgeoisie like to kid themselves, but the only answer to today’s problems. And as the deep crisis of world capitalism comes more and more to the surface, more and more people will seek our ideas. This was shown by the turnout of more than 30 at ULU Marxist Society and Socialist Appeal’s Marxist Day School on Saturday 12th July.

The unexpected by-election in the Glasgow East constituency has focussed the attention of the political parties and the media on a part of Clydeside which it has long been fashionable to ignore. At the general election Labour obtained a majority of 13,500 over the SNP candidate, gaining 60.7% of the vote. If ever Labour had a safe seat it was Glasgow East. This has led to the constituency being taken for granted and systematically neglected. In Greater Glasgow, life expectancy is below the national average at 70.7 years. In the Calton ward of Glasgow East it is just 53.9 years, a figure comparable with many ‘third world’ countries.

At present gas prices are going up by 13.6% in Britain. They’re rising by just 2% in the Netherlands. Prices are 25% higher here than on the continent. By the end of the year household bills will be £1,323 a year. This is twice as high as when Labour was elected in 1997. Some estimate household bills could hit £1,500 next winter.

The bosses are over the moon. “Boris Johnson’s London will be a Tory laboratory” trumpets the Daily Telegraph (May 4th).  That makes David Cameron their Doctor Frankenstein. Don’t let anybody fall for the line that it can’t get worse after Blair and Brown. Already one of Johnson’s top aide’s has had to resign for saying about immigrants who don’t like Tory policies "Well, let them go (back) if they don't like it here."

Terry was a larger than life figure and a fine representative of the Liverpool working class. A ‘salt of the earth’ man who dedicated his efforts to the cause of the working class. Always smiling and joking, he was always seen wearing his black leather jacket, even in Parliament, a place he pretty much hated. He served his time there from 1983, when he was elected along with Dave Nellist and later Pat Wall as part of the Militant trio, until 1992. This was the culmination of decades of work by Militant supporters in the Merseyside labour movement. They had refused to abandon the struggle within the Labour Party.

Brief as it was woeful, Wendy Alexander’s leadership of the Labour Party in Scotland has come to an end. Alexander was forced to resign after being given a one day ban from parliament for breaking rules regarding donations for her campaign to become Labour Party leader. Her actions were illegal – no doubt about it. No one is quite sure why such large sums of cash were needed for what in effect became a coronation, given the lack of an opposition candidate.

In the Mental Health Trust where I work, now a Foundation Trust, the primary anxiety for workers is not about pay but about the future of their jobs. Of course, rising prices and a lousy pay deal - coupled with the Trust's intention to hold an across the board 'banding review' - piles on the pressure, but the fact that repeated structural changes, resulting in cuts in the management structure, have saved no real money and, now, all vacant posts have been abolished (rather than frozen, as has been usual in the past) has drawn attention to a very pressing threat to jobs.