Amongst the victims of Thatcherism include the miners in Britain, who fought a long battle against the Tory government of the 1980s. Here we present a letter from John Dunn of the Justice for Mineworkers campaign, who gives a personal view of hearing the news about Thatcher's death. The letter is entitled: "The day Margaret Thatcher died and ruined my internal decor".

The TV is full of the sycophantic outpourings of right-wing commentators and politicians about the sudden death of Margaret Thatcher. The Establishment has rallied to praise her. The Queen has sent a personal message of condolence to the Thatcher family. The news is full of tributes, portraying Thatcher as some kind of champion of freedom and liberty. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. She was a champion – a champion of capitalism, the ruling class, and all it represents.

Margaret Thatcher, the former Tory Prime Minister and one of the most hated figures in the history of the labour movement, died today at the age of 87. Thatcher, more than anyone, personified the brutal attacks on the working class during the 1980s - attacks that the Tory-led Coalition are continuing today. We publish here a short piece on Thatcher's death, with more in depth analysis of her legacy to follow soon.

In 2010, British students took to the streets in the biggest and most militant display of student anger in decades. At the time, it was clear that this heralded the beginning of a wave of radicalisation in society in response to the crisis of capitalism, austerity and the Conservative government. The protesters even attacked the Conservative HQ in their thousands. This article analyses the perspectives for the student movement in the UK, and deals with questions such as how militant student activists should organise and what attitude they should have to the National Union of Students (NUS).

After the great financial collapse of 2008, we find ourselves in a turbulent period. Mass unemployment and savage attacks on living standards are the order of the day; revolutionary upheavals across the Middle East, Europe and America are the response. Many people have begun to ask fundamental questions about the way society is organised; in particular, the role of banks and financial institutions - ‘finance capital’ - has been put under the microscope.

The credit agency Moody’s has stripped Britain of its triple A credit rating, humiliating the coalition government. It comes on top of news that the UK’s economy shrank in the last quarter of 2012, whilst the other two main credit agencies have the UK on “negative watch”. All this increases fears of the British economy heading for a triple-dip recession.

The Justice and Security Bill, published for debate in May 2012, deals with matters relating to the secret services. Most controversially, it includes proposals to introduce ‘Closed Material Procedures’ (CMPs), also known as ‘secret trials’, to civil damages proceedings in the UK. Such procedures are already used in criminal trials, and some immigration and employment cases. This would prevent one party to proceedings from seeing or challenging evidence when it is deemed necessary to protect ‘national security’.

The huge response from ordinary people to the death of Hugo Chavez has highlighted the massive impact that the Venezuelan Revolution has had on millions of people worldwide. Never has the Venezuelan Revolution been more relevant than today. This explains why over 70 people came to see Alan Woods - editor of www.marxist.com and founder of the Hands Off Venezuela campaign - speak at the UCLU Marxist (University College London) society on the legacy of Chavez and the tasks of the Venezuelan Revolution now that its leader has passed away.

Within the next few months local councils will be voting through budgets for the coming financial year and are under extreme pressure from the government to make yet more serious cuts in jobs and services. Labour councils in particular are being asked to act as agents for the Tory-led Coalition at Westminster in the interests of big business.

The recent news that the UK economy shrank by 0.3% in the last quarter of 2012 will come as no surprise to working people. Four of the last five quarters have seen the UK economy contracting in what has been described as a "flat 2012." The reality is that a triple-dip recession is now very much on the cards. Manufacturing has again been badly hit with a 0.9% decline in the last quarter, but the most visible sign of the continuing economic decline in the UK has come in the British retail market. A number of well known High Street retailers - Jessops, HMV and Blockbuster - have all gone into administration, potentially leading to thousands of redundancies. This follows on the heels of

Last September 2012 the British Trade Union Congress (TUC), at it’s annual meeting of delegates from the whole trade union movement p assed Resolution 27. For the first time in its history the TUC voted a resolution which called for the full public ownership of the banks and financial institutions. This resolution built on similar ones that had been passed at trade union conferences in 2012, in particular those of Unite the Union and the UCU.

On January 25^th, as world leaders were meeting to discuss the global economic “recovery” at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, official figures were released showing that the UK economy – far from being on the road to recovery – had shrunk by 0.3% in the last quarter of 2012.

On Wednesday 23rd January 2013, David Cameron finally ended his long period of dithering and capitulated to political pressure in his own party from the right-wing Tory ‘Euro-sceptics’. Why has Cameron made a move that seems almost designed to undermine the influence of British capitalism globally and in Europe, and what attitude should socialists have to the question of an EU referendum?

On Saturday 26th January, up to 25,000 workers, Labour party members, trade unionists, students and members of the local community marched against the proposed closure of Lewisham Hospital’s A&E department located in the South London borough of Lewisham. Such a large turnout for a local protest is unprecedented in recent times and demonstrates the real depth of resistance to the cuts and anger at the government in the community. The march was considered so important that Millwall, the local football team, moved their Saturday match to ensure that it did not clash.

This capitalist crisis has posed things in a point blank fashion. Austerity cuts have hammered local government and public services across the board. Cuts were announced by the Coalition in 2010 of nearly 30% from local authority budgets, which have to cover most of the basic needs of local communities, from rubbish collection to emergency payments for the most needy in society. However, the Local Government Association says it has identified almost £1bn of additional cuts or delays to grants, adding in some authorities to a further cut of 10% of its core funding.