Features

Can Britain afford not to transform social care? It’s up to workers everywhere to demand change and not be fobbed off with more delay…

The Grenfell Tower Fire - and accountability

The public inquiry set up soon after the Grenfell Tower Fire completed its hearings last November and is expected to publish its final report in 2024. There’s much to learn already…

End the long war in Ukraine!

The British government is clear: it wants the war in Ukraine to go on and on, and it will seek to sabotage anything and anyone that works for peace…

Nuclear power? Yes, please!

Reluctant to invest in infrastructure, successive governments have failed to keep in step with public support for nuclear – and failed, too, to provide the clean electricity that nuclear can deliver…

People need homes, not empty promises

Housing policy in Britain is in a mess. From missed house building targets through to exploitative land deals, mortgage inflation and homelessness, the basic needs of people have been neglected…

End the cycle: the crisis is one of capitalism

Freed from the EU, Britain’s economy can – and must – avoid the perils of globalism. But globalisation is not an aberration… it is the logical development of capitalism...

The resistible rise of the net zero dogma

The ruinously expensive rush to meet the net zero target of 2050 has never been agreed by the public, and the government and its Climate Change Committee are determined not to let the people Britain have a say…

Recruitment without retention won’t save the NHS

More places need to be created to train medical staff for the NHS, but the latest plan to address the shortages in the NHS workforce ignores one crucial question: how to retain staff in the face of low pay and poor conditions…

Muck and money

Britain’s regulators are supposed to provide safeguards for the public. Their record is woeful…

The pandemic inquiry should listen to workers

There is much to learn from the Covid-19 pandemic, but we should not look to the Hallett inquiry for the lessons. Official inquiries take ages, cost millions, and rarely come up with the goods…

Who should run London? [print version]

Are mayors the wise men who should lead today’s educated population? Or are they surplus to requirements? We need to dig deeper to find the real power in London, look at the role of the City, its financial sector…

Who should run London?

24 August 2023

The way London is run does not serve its people. Past improvements have given way to the dominance of the City of London and finance capital.

Britain out of NATO - no to war, yes to defence

The NATO drums for war are beating loudly. British workers should not ignore this, still less support it…

Rail - a crisis created by government

Rail workers should ensure that the strong workplace organisation that has been developed when they built support for their campaigns of industrial action is not dissipated...

Research: take control of our funding

The government’s fear of real independence from the European Union is nowhere clearer than in funding for research – and it’s a fear shared by too many who work in research…

Britain-wide view gaining ground in Scotland

With the SNP administration in crisis, Scots can see that many of the strikes for better wages and conditions are Britain-wide – as is the financial crisis…

Steel: hanging by a thread

Without a steel industry Britain will be dependent on other countries for our strategic infrastructure. Yet the government will not take the steps needed to keep it alive…

Abandoning the dangerous dollar

Something significant is afoot in global finance. It relates directly to workers’ daily battle with inflation, potentially also having far wider impact. And it’s about the US dollar…

Inflation, capital and labour

22 June 2023

Inflation as a result of government policy since 2008 has now worked through to consumer prices. The underlying economics of inflation are the result of a poor bargain between capitalists and wage-earners.

Teachers reject pay offer in fight for education

The well crafted and deliberate attacks on education by government are now being resisted by workers, who believe this is a critical point in the struggle to arrest decline…

The truth about the claims for electric vehicles

It is time to examine the case for electric vehicles. The arguments, rooted in net zero dogma, don’t stand up to reality. Investment is needed, not imposed targets…

Creating class control in practice

Control is the power of directing what happens in a country, or an industry. We say workers must take control, but that has quite a different meaning for workers than for capitalists…

Britain needs better transport - much better

A report from the TUC and transport unions calls for a massive increase in investment and financial support for public transport outside of London – rail, tram and bus…

Britain is one nation - no to all separatism!

Separatism takes different forms across Britain, a reactionary movement backed only by a minority. The struggle for unity will have to be persistent and strategic…

Trade union laws: a brake on workers' action

Workers have always organised to defend their interests, governments have always used the law to oppose them, but struggle does not stop…

Understanding 'excess deaths' - and their cause

The increasing number of deaths in Britain is a concern. We need to ask why – and recognise that there is no evidence that Covid vaccines are to blame. Quite the contrary…

The dangerous drive to devolution

Devolution is a threat to workers across England, as well as in Wales and Scotland, with the government bent on breaking up Britain into competing regions…

Defending Britain’s open spaces

The health benefits of open air sports have been known since ancient times, but they are under threat for children in Britain today…

Dirty water - no good for fish, no good for people