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Pamphlet: What We Stand ForLatest International NewsWellred BooksThis month we recommend... Order from Socialist Appeal Fighting Fund appeal 2012
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TED GRANT WRITINGS
Click here to purchase Ted Grant Writings Volume One
This volume covers the period 1938-42 and is titled "Trotskyism and the Second World War." Also available:
Latest British NewsBook - 'Reformism or Revolution' - still available
Latest Trade Union NewsIn Defence Of MarxismLeon Trotsky's classic work "In Defence Of Marxism" Now available from Wellred at a special price
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Boris Johnson, new Mayor of London, has started as he
intended to go on. He introduced an alcohol ban on London Underground without
any preparation and without putting staff in place to enforce the ban.
Inevitably the ban was challenged last Saturday night. Tube staff were left on
their own to deal with drunken revellers in addition to running a transport
system, as they had warned in advance. They were left at the sharp end of
Johnson’s self-publicising antics.
The water companies were privatised by the Tories to harness
‘the dynamism of private enterprise’ to the water industry. Most people at the
time didn’t realise there was a problem with the water supply. They could turn
a tap on any time and water rates were low. There’s a problem now – the problem
is private ownership.
A few days ago London's Tory mayor, Boris Johnson, scrapped
the discounted oil deal with the Venezuelan government which allowed half price
bus fares for Londoners on income support.
The election of Boris Johnson as London Mayor in May should be met with
foreboding. This is not good for train operators or working people in
and around London. Boris appears to be born not only with a silver
spoon in his mouth (having been educated in Eton), but also a foot. We
should not be taken in by the appearance of barmy Boris.
The wealth in the UK today is the product of the labour of
working people. The problem is that they do not control how that wealth is
distributed. The value that they have created over and above what they receive
in their pay packets is appropriated by the owners of industry who ensure,
through their State apparatus, that the lion’s share is creamed off to those
who already have more than enough for their needs. The present leaders of the Labour Party are tied hand
and foot to the interests of the rich, the capitalist class. A new leadership
of the Party is required that will harness social wealth to provide for all.
The New Labour government is on the rocks. The wreckage of
Blairism, under the leadership of Gordon Brown, was dealt a further crushing
blow at the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. A 7,000 Labour majority was turned
into a 7,000 Tory majority in a swing of 17.6%. It was the Tories' first
by-election gain in 30 years.
The Crewe by-election, with an 18% swing to the Tories,
confirms that they are on target for a landslide win in the next general
election. Railway workers and other working class people who have voted Labour
for generations have finally had enough. The betrayals and disappointments of
New Labour have caused these electors to break the habit of a lifetime. Make no
mistake about it. Mass working class abstentions have done for Brown and his
witless crew.
This is the first of two articles looking at the decline in the quality
of life for working people in Britain today. This first article focuses
on the workplace, where there has been relative decline in wages and
deterioration in the conditions of employment. The second part looks at
the attack on the 'social wage'. This consists of the services and
facilities we access such as health care, education, public transport
and local services - all of which contribute towards the quality of
life for working people in modern society. They form the provision in
society of things working people, unlike the rich, could not afford to
buy individually but provided on behalf of people by the State.
Together the two elements - direct wages and the social wage - provide
our quality of life, but both are now under attack, creating an
impoverished life in Britain for working people.
Wendy Alexander, leader of the Labour Party in Scotland has
declared that the SNP Government should “bring on” a referendum on independence
and has gone as far as to not rule out a bill calling for a poll earlier than
the Nationalist administration’s proposed date of 2010. This has resulted in
the issue of Scottish independence making a large impact on the national media
for the first time since the SNP’s victory in the Scottish Parliament elections
in May of last year. It has also unleashed a potential Pandora’s Box that is
threatening to divide the Labour leadership in Scotland from the national
leadership.
