Diary of a nobody
With Britain’s independence movement facing new challenges, a fresh book looks how to fight, and win…
Workers January/February 2018
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Revolution: which side are you on?
A century after the Bolshevik Revolution ushered in workers’ power, the lessons continue to reverberate around the world…
The aims of Soviet socialism
Only a revolution genuinely committed to the interests of the people, to obliterating poverty and hardship would commit to such a course.
A long way from a believable future for rail
The government talks about having a strategy, but the reality is that overambitious forecasts are likely to leave services cut, and taxpayers and passengers picking up the bill…
No pay, no productivity
Stop all this talk about higher productivity being the route to higher pay. In fact, the reverse is true: only when pay rates rise will capitalists be forced to invest…
Guards battle still raging [shorter]
Disputes about staffing and pay are sweeping through the rail industry…
Grenfell: no control, no accountability
Tenants at Grenfell Tower could not have done more to attract attention to the risk of fire. But they were up against more than penny-pinching profiteers – a whole system had been designed to take control away from them…
PFIs – lucrative and lethal
Remember Private Finance Initiatives? These 30-year lease-back deals to bring public money into private hands are now notorious as very bad value for money.
On the march towards a European army
The current president of the European Commission wants it. So did his predecessors. And now the whole EU is taking steps towards the creation of a unified European military, along with unified defence research…
Brussels eyes procurement
The EU wants a single military procurement policy, coordinated by a newly empowered European Defence Agency.
How politicians created a childcare crisis
What happens when the government introduces a childcare scheme but fails to fund it properly? Nurseries are closing, childminders are quitting – and parents and grandparents are picking up the bill…
Out of control?
There is a wide variety of education and group care for pre-school children.
Negotiations: let's have clarity
It's time for the Brexit negotiators to show the same clarity as that of the British people in the referendum vote. We don't want opaque wording, we want out.
Pensions: Academic ballot
University workers across Britain are being balloted over whether to fight to prevent the closure of their University Superannuation Scheme, a final salary arrangement.
OU backs down on Cuba
The Open University has now agreed to admit students from Cuba after criticism from educational unions and others.
Highs and lows - from the 1930s to the 1980s
The high point of achievement for the British working class was 1945, and the post war years that followed. But how did 1945 happen?
EU: new call for integration
Martin Schulz, head of Germany’s Social Democrats, is calling strongly for ever-closer European integration to build a “United States of Europe” by 2025.
Work-in saves jobs
Decisive action by the workers at Burntisland Fabrication in Scotland has saved jobs at the oil and gas industry equipment maker.
The ever-shrinking Navy
If nothing else, the Ministry of Defence has a sense of humour: with only one month left of the 2017 calendar year, it designated 2017 as “The Year of the Royal Navy”.
Education: inter-union agreement
A good development: the new National Education Union, Unison and the GMB have agreed not to poach each other’s members. But there is also a negative side.
Scotland: a budget designed to divide
Tax plans in the budget issued by the devolved government in Edinburgh mark a split in the united approach to taxation in Britain.
We need a Cromwell now
There are few more nauseating sights than pro-Remain MPs standing up for their constitutional right to “scrutinise” Brexit-related legislation. They are the same MPs who spent years nodding through a flood of EU laws.