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The 17th to the 21st September was a hectic week for many
students as they continue preparing for university. The week-long
freshers fair at Leeds University was a hive of activity and not
wishing to miss a great opportunity the Leeds comrades of Socialist
Appeal and Hands off Venezuela set up some stalls.
Forty years ago this month, in a small school hut in La Higuera,
Bolivia, Ernesto ‘Che' Guevara was brutally executed by the Bolivian
army. Since Che's death, the popular media have tried to
assimilate his image and turn it into a harmless symbol. They have,
however, not succeeded in burying the memory of Che, just as they have
not managed to solve the problems of poverty and destitution in the
third world.
Two years after the brutal shooting by police in London of Jean
Charles de Menezes, his family are no nearer
seeing anyone brought to justice. Jean was shot at least 8 times from
point blank range as he boarded a tube
train at Stockwell station in south London. We now know the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes
is considered by the British establishment as justified despite a
mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Postal workers are to take industrial action this month over
a bitter row over pay and conditions. Walk-outs will take place on 5/6 October
and 8/9 October followed by a rolling programme of strikes until the dispute is
resolved.
On the 18 and 19 September comrades from the Socialist Appeal attended
the Oxford Brookes University freshers fair, with the aim of attracting
people to the ideas of socialism.
Speculation has reached fever pitch in the press over whether or not
Brown will call a snap General Election after only three months as
prime minister. With the Tories languishing in the polls, one giving
Labour an eleven percentage lead, and the government surviving the
different crises of foot and mouth, floods and the run on Northern
Rock, the young Turks of New Labour's front bench are keen to launch an
election. However there is little enthusiasm amongst traditional Labour supporters and there are dangers of an economic crisis.
With total student debts in the U.K reaching a staggering
£18 billion, the threat to our education by privatisation has never been greater. The result has been that the responsibility for higher
education has been handed down, like a cursed heirloom, from government to
university, to family, the buck finally stopping at the student. This means
that students going to university today will pay three times as much as they
would have done a decade ago.
We republish this article from Socialist Appeal April 1995 on proportionality as part of the ongoing discussion in the labour movement about reserve places as a means of overcoming discrimination. Since its original publication it has become more evident that proportionality and reserved seats have been used to undermine democracy in the trade union movement, while not resolving the issues of discrimination.
