Solidarity 3/40, 6 November 2003

Will SWP wreck student left unity too?

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The right wing of Labour Students and its allies have run NUS for more than 20 years, resulting in defeat after defeat for the student movement. Since 1998, however, they have faced increasing opposition, with a united left slate challenging the Labour/"independent" leadership in the elections at every NUS conference.

Galloway bloc is socialist suicide

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By Dave Osler

The things George says:
'A mass unifying movement of grassroots radicals to hobble the state, bring it under popular control and complete an unfinished radical democratic revolution. This level will unite Muslims, Christians, Jews, socialists, liberals and conservatives, men, women and the disadvantaged of all types in one movement of democratic liberation'.
From The Guardian

Revolutionary socialism in England signed its own suicide note last week, and it came in the unlikely shape of a billet-doux to George Galloway. The overwhelming majority of the far left south of the border has lined up behind a project that seeks not so much to put the working class in the saddle, as Orwell expressed it, but to put a £150,000-a-year Saudi-bankrolled crypto-tankie into Strasbourg. Bang goes the Trotskyist neighbourhood.

Press Gang: Do it for the money, Burrell

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By Lucy Clement

In Paul Burrell's position, let's face it, most people would do the same thing. Cash in. And why not? There's not much respect left for the British Royal Family to destroy, now the Queen Mum's dead and with her all that Blitz-heroine mythology.

It's a shame that Burrell's sticking to the tired old line of 'doing it for Diana', but after all those years as a flunkey it's probably too much to expect him suddenly to come out and declare yes, the Royals are a bunch of parasites and here's the inside story.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité - Liberty and the veil

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By Joan Trevor

French teachers, who waged an inspiring battle during the spring and summer against government attacks, have hit the headlines in the "rentrée scolaire" (back to school) not for their continued industrial militancy - things have gone fairly quiet on that front - but, in one school anyway, for excluding two young Muslim women from high-school for wearing a Muslim headscarf.

"We have given them a bloody nose!"

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By a London postal worker

Postal workers have succeeded in giving Royal Mail bosses Leighton, Crozier and the rest of their mob a bloody nose in the fight over imposed conditions.

On every issue that provoked the unofficial strikes over more than two weeks up to 4 November, management has backed down: no victimisations, restoration of the Industrial Relations framework and national agreements. Clear-up of backlog on the basis of "fair and manageable workload", normal allocation of overtime and a commitment to achieving a national agreement on single delivery ("Major Change") by 10 December 2003 - instead of managers trying to impose savings locally without agreement.