Britain

In the biggest strike since the historic general strike of 1926, over a million local government workers struck in defence of their pensions yesterday, March 28th. The mood on the picket lines was cheerful, buoyant and confident in what was undoubtedly the largest and most solid public sector strike ever in Britain.

This morning over 30 trade unionists turned up bright and early with placards and leaflets to stand outside the plush Marriot Hotel at County Hall in London – former headquarters of the GLC – to picket a meeting of the Amicus executive committee. The reason? To protest at the disgraceful sacking of three union employees by the union leadership.

Last Saturday around 50 people gathered in London for the Marxist.com Day School on Latin America. Alan Woods and Jorge Martin, who both just came back from Cuba, spoke on the Cuban and Venezuelan revolutions. You can also listen to Alan Woods' speech by downloading the audio file.

We publish this article by Alon Lessel in Israel on the recent suspension of Ken Livingstone by the unelected Adjudication Panel. Since writing this article last week, the High Court has blocked Livingstone’s suspension allowing him time to prepare his appeal.

The Blair government is discussing all kinds of schemes to curb long established democratic rights. They are doing this using “Islamic terrorism” as an excuse. In reality their measures will in no way fight terrorism, but they will give them more instruments in their attempts to stifle criticism and protest. They are preparing for the future when the workers of Britain will move against their real enemies, the British bosses.

The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) was seen for a period as a success story for anyone looking for an alternative to Labour. Now it is in decline. It is paying the price for abandoning a genuine socialist programme, making concessions both to nationalism and reformism.

Last week the Labour Party suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of the Liberals, losing half its votes in the Dunfermline and West Fife seat in Scotland. This is the first time Labour have lost a seat to the Liberals in Scotland since 1945! This is another symptom of the process taking place in Britain. Blair can no longer win elections. The scene is set for big changes.

While Blair continues to support his friend Bush in the war in Iraq, he is conducting another little war on the home front, this time against the sick and disabled! Up to a million workers who have been declared too sick to work now face the possibility of new and humiliating procedures aimed at forcing them back to work. This is a more silent, less obvious war, but a war nonetheless, a class war.

If you want to win elections you must aim at the centre ground. At least that is the official line. But what is the centre? The centre between what? The centre the media refer to, in reality is an extreme expression of the interests of the bosses. The latest attack on education is an example. It goes against the interests of the overwhelming majority of people in Britain, but no doubt the right wing of Labour and the Tories will meet in the “centre” and vote for it together.

Preparations are going ahead for a merger of three big trade unions in Britain, Amicus, T&GWU and GMB. The bureaucracy is pressing heavily for this. It would potentially be a very powerful union, but past experiences have shown that mergers have tended to reduce the level of internal democracy. The left in Amicus gathered around the Amicus Unity Gazette are not opposed to the merger in principle but are demanding the rank and file have a last say through recall conferences and that they be allowed to decide on the key issue of the rule book.

A conference is taking place in London this Saturday to discuss the crisis of working class representation. It will not take any decisions, but some of those taking part clearly have the perspective that a break with the Labour Party is necessary. What is the answer to the present Blairite domination of the Labour Party?

The recent Turner report on pensions in Britain came up with the same proposal we have seen everywhere else in the world, raise the age of retirement! Is it really true that we can't afford to pay pensions? Productivity of labour is going up all the time; so fewer workers should be able to keep more pensioners. That would be the case if it weren't for the profit motive that drives capitalism.

Glasgow has the lowest life expectancy in Britain, 69.3 years compared to Kensington and Chelsea whose resolute residents can expect a longevity of more than 85 years. This is the difference between the poorest and wealthiest parts of Britain.