Death Rates - Highest for a decade
Britain’s death rates for January to July 2015 were 30,000 up on similar figures for 2014 – the highest for a decade.
NHS contract challenged
The NHS is facing a legal challenge from private provider Care UK, after four GP-led clinical commissioning groups awarded an elective care contract instead to a local NHS Trust in East London.
Still fighting over the Co-op Bank
The “Save our Bank” campaign – the cooperative and mutualists who have seen the demise of the Co-op Bank and control passing to private equity and hedge fund – is still trying to fight back against the new owners.
Not a real change
25 August 2015
This book by Christian Felber, an economist and university lecturer in Austria, outlines an “alternative” to the economic chaos and social suffering caused by financial capital. Some of his ideas are utopian; but there’s also stimulating thought about how to mitigate capitalism’s callousness.
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Get real! Doctors will need to turn 7-day anger into action
16 August 2015
Last month health secretary Jeremy Hunt told doctors to “get real” over the need for “proper seven-day service” in the NHS. Whether those two small words were a deliberate attempt to antagonise, there is no question about the mood of doctors.
1945: America drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
28 July 2015
Seventy years ago, in August 1945, America exploded atomic bombs over two Japanese cities. Controversy still rages as to why they were used and whether these weapons should have been authorised. The USA remains the only state to have deployed nuclear weapons in warfare.
Britain's role in the Saudi attack on Yemen
27 July 2015
Since late March, a coalition led by Saudi Arabia, including Qatar, the UAE and Egypt, and backed by the Obama and Cameron governments, has been attacking Yemen.
RAF pilots join US-inspired bombing in Syria
27 July 2015
RAF pilots have taken part in NATO bombing missions in Syria. This is in breach of the August 2013 Parliamentary vote against any British military involvement in Syria – but in support of US strategy.
No good comes from the rich
26 July 2015
All parliamentary parties hold the view that very rich people are good for the economy. By implication workers can only hope to have crumbs from the table. That’s never been a convincing argument – and this book from Andrew Sayer shows how the opposite is true.
Financial Times sold to Japanese company
26 July 2015
Publishing group Pearson is selling the Financial Times Group to Japanese firm Nikkei for £844 million – sending another famous British firm into foreign ownership.
Plans to tighten the euro noose
20 July 2015
Even as negotiations with Greece were continuing in June, the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, released a report calling for closer monetary and political union.
Economical with the truth on debt and deficits
15 July 2015
The recent Budget cynically repeated well rehearsed lies masquerading as truths. Fundamentally, there is no financial soundness in the “austerity” regimes.
Why we are striking: Tube workers speak out
10 July 2015
Members of Aslef and RMT picketing on 9 July told cpbml.org.uk why they were on strike. The dispute is about working conditions, not pay, associated with the proposed 24-hour operation of the tube.
Legal aid lawyers take direct action against payments cuts
8 July 2015
Legal aid lawyers who provide advice in criminal cases have embarked on direct action against a further 8.75 per cent cut in legal aid payments for lawyers attending police stations, magistrates courts and Crown Court cases.
The euro prison
8 July 2015
Pompously launched to the strains of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy at the start of 1991, the euro now stands revealed as a cage to trap and impoverish the peoples of Europe.
Shutdown ahead as Tube workers prepare to walk out
8 July 2015
London’s Tube services are set for a complete shutdown today as all the major unions in London Underground strike for 24 hours from 6pm in a dispute over the introduction of all-night Tube trains.
EasyJet cabin crew ballot over pay
7 July 2015
Cabin crews at the airline easyJet are to be balloted for industrial action by their union, Unite, following a breakdown in negotiations over pay for over 2,000 cabin crew at 11 bases throughout Britain.
Indesit delivery workers ballot on action in fight over pay
6 July 2015
The delivery of thousands of “white goods”, from fridge freezers to kettles, could be severely disrupted if industrial action by more than 200 drivers and warehouse staff at Indesit goes ahead.
Stop Cameron's renewed drive to war in Syria!
6 July 2015
Yet again, any opportunity to justify an attack on Syria is cynically used by the British government. The latest case is the vile terrorist murders on the beach in Tunisia.
Companies in merger frenzy
5 July 2015
The past two years have seen a significant rise in the volume of company mergers and acquisitions across the world – a straw in the wind of the next crash?
Remnants of Primary Care Support Services handed to Capita
2 July 2015
NHS England decided at the end of June to transfer almost a thousand workers involved in the “back office” functions of GP services to private company Capita in September.
RMT to campaign against EU in referendum
29 June 2015
Transport union RMT yesterday at its Annual General Meeting in Newcastle to campaign against continued membership of the EU in the promised referendum.
RMT support solid in Scottish ferry dispute
28 June 2015
Ferry workers halted sailings to islands on the west coast of Scotland, taking action against the threat to wages, standards and jobs arising from an EU-enforced privatisation process.
First they come for the unions
We have said that the main danger of fascism in Britain comes from the heart of the establishment, parliament. If you doubt this, take a look at the Trade Union Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech.
After the election
After 7 May, what should workers do? We don’t have the luxury of just preparing for the next election, as the Labour party is doing – though it looks like it is seeing how to lose the next election too.
Take part, take heart
How heartening to be in a united and determined group of workers who successfully resist a move against them or gain an improvement. What could be better?
Who needs the EU? Not the motor industry…
The British motor industry is bucking the trend of decline – even though there are no longer any major British-owned motor manufacturers. It is an industry that thrives outside of the EU and demonstrably would thrive even more without the EU’s destructive restrictions.
Why Britain needs an industrial policy
Britain can’t properly provide for its people without a complex web of manufacture and technology. For all the talk of services, it needs industry.
The facts about what leaving the EU would mean
The EU is an organisation that was formed, and is run, by the employing class for itself. We are for the interests of the working class in Britain.