Socialist Appeal

A Christmas Carol – 2003 style: Part Two: The Blair leadership's strange concept of "social justice"

Tuesday, 23 December 2003
In Gordon Brown's recent Budget Report for 2003 we are told that "social justice" is the aim of the Blair government. A closer look at official statistics shows that the opposite is being achieved.

Capitalist fetishism and the decay of art

By Alan Woods
Tuesday, 16 December 2003
Someone has said that one of the criteria for winning the Turner Prize is not to be understood. The philosophy behind this is: the less I am understood, the better the art.Yet the kind of art that wins the Turner competition also has merit. They have the merit of holding up a mirror to the society that produced them, and saying: “This is what you are, and this is all you are capable of producing.” These works point out to us that beneath the sleek, comfortable bourgeois surface of modern society, horrors are lurking: dead vermin, murder, death and decay.

Britain: Amicus Executive Committee Election Results

Monday, 15 December 2003
Amicus Executive Committee Election Results

North of Ireland - Polarisation at the polls leaves Stormont suspended in mid-air

Thursday, 04 December 2003

Voters in the north of Ireland have delivered their verdict on the Stormont Assembly. As we have consistently explained the Good Friday Agreement, and the institutions of devolution associated with it, could never begin to solve the problems facing ordinary working people no matter what their background. Indeed the divide between Catholics and Protestants has never been wider. The election result itself demonstrates a further polarisation in the shape of Paisley's DUP becoming the main Unionist Party, while Sinn Fein overtook the SDLP as the main Nationalist party.

Royal Mail bosses on the back foot

Monday, 01 December 2003

Following last months unofficial strike action by postal workers management seem to have been put temporarily onto the back foot. This is in marked contrast to the period following the recent narrow rejection of a national strike over pay and conditions. At that time, Royal Mail management could not conceal their pleasure. Cockey jumped-up managers all over the country engaged in a new offensive against the workforce. Top managers were bragging that they had the full support of the government, the DTI and Patricia Hewitt in particular.

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