Tory chancellor George Osborne claims to have an economic recovery. If there is one, it’s not much of one, even in broad capitalist terms. On the latest figures, business investment, the central measure of the accumulation of capital, was down 2.7% on a year previously.

In narrower terms, bosses and bankers have been doing well for a while. Take-home pay for the average boss of a top-hundred (FTSE 100) company was up to £4.3 million in 2012, an increase of 10 per cent on the previous year. In 2010-11, FTSE 100 bosses took an average pay rise of 12%.

Paris Thompson, one of the “Facebook Four” whose expulsion from the SWP almost a year ago started the continuing crisis in that group, wrote on 29 September:

Matt Hale (Solidarity 296) is right about the political deterioration of the SWP, but, I think, too generous to the IS and SR groups which preceded SWP.

The latest UN report on climate change provides a stark warning: carry on as we are and within our lifetimes the benign climate on which human society depends will be drastically altered, with dire consequences for billions across the globe.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the physical science volume of its fifth report on Friday, with two further volumes to follow next spring. Its language was dry, but there is no doubting the caution.

Ed Miliband’s announcement at Labour Party conference that a post-2015 Labour government would freeze energy prices has been met with outrage from energy bosses and the right-wing press.

The Express foresaw “rationing” and “blackouts”. Bosses from Centrica, RWE Npower, SSE, and other firms denounced the plan. Centrica chair Roger Carr called it “a recipe for economic ruin”.

Thirteen of the militia opposition groups in Syria have declared: “These forces call on all military and civilian forces to unite under a clear Islamic framework based on Sharia law, which should be the sole source of legislation.”

In so doing they are rejecting and formally breaking away from the leadership of the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian National Coalition.

The FSA’s formally secular-nationalist character is putting it at odds with a growing number of Islamist brigades, frequently the preserve of foreign jihadists.

The English Defence League have called a national demo in Bradford on 12 October.

We cannot let these violent racists march unopposed.

Recently in Hull the EDL were virtually unopposed, so the police allowed them to march. They marched down a street with a large Kurdish population shouting racist slogans, smashing windows; they beat up two Labour Party members.

The Anti Fascist Network in Leeds and Bradford is calling on anti-fascists in the north and local working-class people to counter the EDL when they turn up in the city centre.

On 19 September, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling announced that the majority of probation services across England and Wales would be “up for sale”.

70% of offender rehabilitation services will be privatised by Autumn 2014. The remaining 30% of probation work, which will comprise “high risk” only cases (offenders categorised as posing a significant threat to the community), will be placed under the control of 35 new government companies.

The high risk work will form a new and hugely slimmed down National Probation Service.

The Government has speeded up the sell-off of Royal Mail so that the shares will be sold and trading on the market before the strikes for which the Communication Workers' Union is now balloting can start.

The share offer went out on 27 September, the same day that the CWU ballot started. Applications to buy shares must be in by 8 October. The allocation of shares to buyers will be announced, and some limited trading will start, on 11 October, and then full trading on 15 October.

The CWU ballot closes on 16 October, and the first legal date for strikes will be 23 October.

Not content with harassing women outside abortion clinics during Lent, the religious “40 Days for Life” anti-abortionists are repeating their campaign from 25 September to 3 November.

They plan 8am-7pm prayer vigils, 7 days a week in London (Stratford BPAS), Cardiff, Birmingham, Leeds, Leamington Spa, Milton Keynes and Manchester.

They will be giving out leaflets to women going into the clinic which include lies like “having an abortion could give you breast cancer”.

Counter-campaign info and discussion: