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By Adam Booth
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Saturday, 30 May 2009 |
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 Earlier this year, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband ended years of silence
from the Government as to how they are going to address the issue of
climate change, and how they plan to replace Britain's aging power
plants, many of which are nearing the end of their lifetime,
threatening to plunge the country into darkness due to a lack of
electricity. The Government's answer lies in a technology called
"Carbon Capture and Storage", or CCS, which they claim will be the
silver bullet that simultaneously kills the problems of global warming
and national energy supply.
This article raises some concerns about CCS as part of the ongoing discussion inside the Labour movement about socialism and our natural resources.We welcome any comments on this contribution and the issues it raises.
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By Séamus Loughlin
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Tuesday, 02 June 2009 |
 If you hadn’t noticed, there is an election or rather a number of elections this week, what with the Euro Elections and the Council ones. Every lamp post, telegraph pole or slow moving animal has been festooned with posters for weeks. All of the hopefuls smile at you as you walk past, each photo carefully doctored so you can’t see the vampire fangs.
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By Richard Vivian
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Friday, 29 May 2009 |
 With the European elections looming, visit any main town across the
length and breadth of the country during the day and you will be sure
to find BNP activists in smart suits handing out glossy leaflets in the
High Street and their message of "Yes to Putting British People First"
- a message of course earlier put out by Gordon Brown, a message that
has done much to hinder the campaign against the racist BNP.
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By Hermann Albrecht in Venezuela
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Friday, 29 May 2009 |
 At a recent gathering in the State of Guayana President Chavez
announced a series of new nationalisations, but he also stressed the
need for workers' control, planning and socialism. What now needs to be
done is to act on these words and the only force that can do that is
the working class. Otherwise all the good proposals can be buried by
the myriad of reformists and bureaucrats who infest the movement.
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By Ewan Gibbs and Patrick Orr
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Thursday, 28 May 2009 |
 As the economic crisis deepens across the world the ruling class throughout Europe is launching a fresh offensive against education as it tries to squeeze working class students for as much as they’ve got. In April, education ministers from all over Europe met in Prague to announce the success the of the Bologna process: a Europe wide plan to further open up public education to the pillaging forces of the market.
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By Socialist Appeal
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Thursday, 28 May 2009 |
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We republish an article from the Morning Star that shows MP John McDonnell’s backing for the Mitie and other cleaners fighting for their rights. We have been covering the cleaners’ battles for months now (http://www.socialist.net/mitie-cleaners-fight.htm) and welcome John’s intervention. We urge that support for and solidarity with them be taken up in every section of the labour and trade union movement.
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By Austin Harney
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Thursday, 28 May 2009 |
 The Limerick Soviet was established on 6th April 1919, a few months after the Dail (the newly elected Irish national assembly) proclaimed independence from Britain in January. In fact Ireland was occupied by British soldiers. In an incident, nationalist Robert Byrne was shot dead by occupying troops. His death was heavily mourned throughout the city as 20,000 people attended his funeral in protest. The British Government reacted angrily by imposing martial law on the city with the use of troops and tanks. The townsfolk responded by setting up the Limerick Soviet.
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By Socialist Appeal
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Tuesday, 26 May 2009 |
 The furore about MPs
claiming outrageous expenses and resorting to outright fiddling gets
worse by the day. Labour, as the Party in
power for the past twelve years presiding over this scandal, is
facing electoral meltdown. Naturally the Labour ranks are panicking.
Labour appears doomed at the local and European elections on June
4th,
and in the general election over the next year. The situation could
still be turned around but the unions and rank and file will have
to take decisive action and take the Parliamentary Labour Party by
the scruff of the neck.
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By Daniel Read
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Wednesday, 27 May 2009 |
 London Met Police have been accused of using plain clothed officers to
infiltrate the G20 protests held in london this April in order to provoke violence.The accusation has come after several weeks
of shock after news of the death of Ian Tomlinson at police hands and the
injuring of many others.
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By Will Roche
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Monday, 25 May 2009 |
 North London saw hundreds march through its streets last Saturday in protest at a wave of planned cuts in jobs and public services in the surrounding areas.
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By Michael Roberts (additional reporting by Steve Jones)
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Sunday, 24 May 2009 |
 Alongside
the waste of resources from capitalist slumps comes inequality and
injustice. Michael Roberts goes beyond the facts and figures to see how capitalism in the 21st Century has ensured that the rich have got richer and the poor... well you can quess Our economics correspondent takes a closer look at some of the facts
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By Our correspondents in Puerto Ordaz
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Sunday, 24 May 2009 |
 Comrades from eleven states across
Venezuela, including youth leaders and important factory
representatives, gathered over the weekend to attend the sixth congress
of the CMR, a congress that highlighted the immense work done over the
past year and the important steps forward in building the Marxist
tendency within the Venezuelan labour and youth movement.
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By Andy Fenwick
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Wednesday, 20 May 2009 |
 Redundancies announced at Worcester Technology
College will fall heavily
on lecturing and support staff who provide for the needs of some of the more
disadvantaged students in the college. Worcester College of Technology staff
are shocked at the news that 30 jobs are to be axed in the new academic year.
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By Rob Sewell
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Tuesday, 19 May 2009 |
 With the announcement that Michael Martin, The Speaker of the House of Commons, is to stand down in June, the MPs Expenses scandal has claimed its most high profile victim. Rob Sewell looks at this developing political crisis in Britain and explains the real background to it.
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Nearly fifty years ago, Ted Grant wrote a major article called 'Will there be a slump?' in which he outlined the nature and underlying reasons for capitalist crisis and why it would keep happening - a controversial statement given that it was made during the period of the post-war boom. This article from 1960 remains as relevant today as ever - if not more so given the world recession which has thrown the global economies into chaos. Here we see a real explanation for the failures of capitalism and why they want the working class to pay for their mess.
