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The government has announced that workers who are stressed out by the financial worries will receive free counselling on the NHS; I always thought that the NHS was free at the point of use anyway. What is behind this announcement is the fact that the government has recognised that it will have to boost mental health and increase the number of psychologists to provide a support network to help those who develop depression from the stress the recession is putting on individuals and families.
The workers of Britain are facing 20 years
of austerity, not seen since the inter-war period. Whoever wins the next
general election – whether it be Labour or Tory – they will be forced to go
onto the offensive against the working class. But we can already see the
outlines of the future class struggle in this country, which will create the
conditions in which Marxism can gain the ear of the workers. [This text is
based on a speech given by Rob Sewell at the 
At the beginning of this month comrades
from up and down the country met in London for the National Conference of the
Socialist Appeal, the British group supporting the International Marxist
Tendency.
The British Marxist tendency met last year
as the economic crisis had begun to affect British capitalism. This year the
system in Britain and internationally shows no sign of emerging from the
recession it has plunged into, overshadowing the bourgeoisies’ celebrations of
the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin wall, which they saw as the 'final
victory' of capitalism.
Comrades left
in high spirits determined to build the forces of Marxism throughout Britain,
as our part in the fight for socialism internationally.
The chances of a referendum on Scottish independence appear increasingly distant following a Scottish parliamentary vote in favour of a resolution condemning moves towards one. This is a huge blow to the SNP self-declared Scottish Government that is committed to holding a referendum before the current parliament ends in 2011. However the vote has also done little for a Labour Party that has lost all sense of direction, as its leadership exposes itself as utterly unable to capitalise on the SNP’s fall from grace.
In a sign of the increasing anger at job losses, workers at BMW's Mini factory in Cowley, Oxford threw fruit at union officials when they heard they were to be sacked with one hour's notice on Monday 16 February. Management at the Mini factory had minutes earlier told the weekend shift of 850 workers that they were being made redundant.
As socialists we absolutely support the movement of the workers of the Prisme Packaging Plant in fighting for their right to work and pay.
It has been said by rank and file trade unionists for many years that a blacklist has been used by employers in the construction industry. Now after intense lobbying by the rank and file forcing their unions to raise the issue in Parliament, it has been proved that there is a blacklist of 3,200 construction workers.
Following on from the Hooper Report, the
government is proposing to part-privatise Royal Mail, the letter delivery arm
of the Post Office. There’s no silly nonsense about putting the arrangement out
to tender so we the taxpayers get the best deal either. They’ve already lined
up TNT to take 30% of Royal Mail. The announcement has roused fury among
millions of people - trade unionists and just ordinary people who use Royal
Mail, which is pretty well everyone. Why mess about with something that works
well? We have the cheapest postal service in Western Europe. We are the only
country in the European Union that still has a Saturday delivery.
As the
capitalist crisis deepens, more and more workers are coming under attack.
Vodafone has just announced huge lay-offs. There are plans to axe 1,000 jobs on
the railways. The sacking of 850 agency workers at the Cowley car plant in
Oxford is the latest in a string of redundancies. They received no redundancy
pay, no holiday pay and no sickness pay. All they were offered was their P45s
and a week’s wages. Wage freezes have also become common in the last period. Short-time
working has spread with Toyota closing its factory for four weeks.
High-ranking British police officers
have expressed concern that the country may be facing an outburst of street
protests. Superintendent David Hartshorn, head of the Metropolitan police's
public order branch, and one of the highest ranking police officers in the
country, in an interview with The Guardian newspaper, spoke of the
possibility of riots like those that rocked the country in the 1980s, erupting
later this year as people who lose their jobs, homes or savings become
"footsoldiers" in a wave of violent mass protests.
The State Pension was
established 100 years ago on 1st January 1909. This followed a ten
year campaign by social reformers and the Trade Union Movement.Pensions should be a right for those who have worked all
their lives. Instead the government is looking to whittle away the fragile
gains of a century of struggle.
The welfare ‘reform’ measures currently wending their way through Parliament are so right wing you might have thought they were drafted by the Tories. Funny you should mention it...David Freud, who drafted the White Paper on which the bill is based, has just defected to the Conservatives. This shows two things:
Poor old Alex Salmond. Things
haven't been going too well for him lately. Maybe it was one too many whiskeys
with their Burns Suppers, but the Scottish National Party Government seems to
be stumbling from one embarrassment to another. First they couldn't get their
“recession beating” budget passed on the first go. Then they were forced to
back down on their flagship policy to scrap council tax, apparently due to a
lack of “parliamentary consensus”. And then, just to add insult to injury Iain
Gray, the Scottish Labour Party leader, slammed the SNPs plans for an
independence referendum.
Coupled to the Bologna Process, though not explicitly included in
it, has been the privatisation of education and all that this entails. So now
not only are students faced with the fact that they will have to work harder
and longer hours for a shorter period of time, that the costs of their
education will also increase (so working on top of the hours required for
studying becomes more of a strain) but also that their courses may end up being
influenced by some company who’s only real interest in to create profit out of
the process…
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