Workers' Liberty

Solidarity 3/86 is now online. Read it here.

The election of a Blair-clone Tory leader and the US Congressional bribery scandal pose basic questions about the supposed democracy under which we live.

RELIGIOUS HATRED...

It has been known for some time that Iqbal Sacranie, General Secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, was right-wing. After all, he accepted a knighthood last year, and serves on government quangos including Blair's "task force" against terrorism.

By Joan Trevor

The Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk faces charges of insulting Turkishness, that might earn him up to three years in prison. An earlier charge against him of insulting Turkey's armed forces has been dropped.

By Gerry Bates

From 23 January members of the shop and distribution workers' union USDAW will be receiving ballot papers for the election of our union executive and president.

By Sacha Ismail (wrongly attributed to a different author in the printed Solidarity)

We need a reps meeting as soon as possible to plan our next steps.

LUL has not backed down - there is every indication that Ken Livingstone and sections of management are digging in to give the union a kicking - so we need to step things up.

This article was wrongly attributed to Tom Cashman. To read an apology click here.

As we go to press, elections are taking place for the General Executive Council of the TGWU.

By Tom Unterrainer

The Department for Education and Skills has pulled off an astonishing act. They've managed to convince Nottingham City Local Education Authority (LEA) to effectively write itself out of responsibility for secondary education in the city - and all by promising "record" investment.

David Broder contributes to our ongoing debate on religion and secularism.

December marked the 100th anniversary of the separation of the French state from the Church, an event marked by a Parti Socialiste (PS)-run "debate" at the Assemblée Nationale.

By Sofie Buckland

To its bourgeois defenders the criminal justice system - courts, prisons, probation service - serves a number of purposes.

By Colin Foster

"Employees engaged on the Portside Wharf Development construction site at Hamilton [Brisbane] attended a stop work meeting. The meeting commenced at about 6.30am and concluded at about 7.00am...

Tube and bus workers in New York shut down the city's transit system
in a strike that lasted 60 hours in the run-up to Christmas.

The Socialist Workers' Party's annual conference, which took place
over the weekend of January 7-8, witnessed an event unprecedented in
the last twenty years: a contested election. What's going on?

Rosalind Robson reviews Whose Britain Is It Anyway?, BBC2

Inequality of land ownership used to one of the major concerns of the early working class and socialist movements in Britain. It is still of great importance around the world, wherever people depend on the land for subsistence.

By Mark Osborn

"Sharon is still 'fighting for his life', between operation room and intensive care, but the myth-making is already going on at full speed", comments Adam Keller's alternative briefing, The Other Israel.

By Yasmine Mather, Workers' Left Unity-Iran

Although Iranians are well known for blaming foreign powers for all
the country's social, economic and political problems, there is some
truth in their resentment of the United States and its role in
ensuring the survival of the clerical regime in Tehran and thus
bringing about the presidency of the fascist Ahmedinejad.

The following letter was sent by Pauline Bradley, the Convenor of Iraq Union Solidarity, to the Morning Star at the end of last year. A cut down version of this letter was published.

In the last issue of Solidarity, Mordecai Ryan outlined the history
of the ILP, the main British "centrist" organisation of the 1930s and 40s. Its nearest equivalent in Britain today is the SWP. As mud is a mix of earth and water so centrism is an unstable and almost always incoherent mix of bits of revolutionary Marxist political tradition and aspiration with alien, reformist, etc elements.

By Dan Katz

Haitian authorities have rescheduled the first round of presidential
and parliamentary elections for 7 February. The polls, originally set
for last November, have been postponed four times because of
so-called "security and organisational issues".

By David Broder

"Not since Ken Livingstone was giving out GLC grants has such a collection of loony tunes gathered under one roof. . . This is reality TV's nadir - or so we must hope." George Galloway on Big Brother, May 2004

By Sacha Ismail

The bitter stand off between the workers and management of Irish
Ferries last month, in which an occupation of two ships triggered a
powerful wave of solidarity action, has been resolved.

By Daniel Randall, NUS National Executive Committee

A recent article in the Times revealed that the number of students
applying to university has, in some places, fallen by 13% on last
year's figures. Overall applications by sixth formers have fallen by
5%.

Clive Bradley reviews Brokeback Mountain

The status of this film as a cultural event is obvious: a mainstream
Hollywood movie, starring handsome up-and-coming actors, by a highly
acclaimed film maker, about a gay love affair between two cowboys (in
which the characters actually have sex)

By Darcy Leigh

On 18 December 2005, Evo Morales of the MAS (Movimento al
Socialismo, Movement Towards Socialism) won 54% of the vote in the
Bolivian presidential elections - the highest support for any
candidate in Bolivia since the restoration of "democracy" in the
1980s.

On 5 January British Airways sacked a second shop steward for
involvement in the Heathrow Airport baggage handlers' strike of 11-12
August in support of the Gate Gourmet catering workers, producing
food for BA's flights, who were locked out on 10 August.

In Solidarity 3-86 (12 January) we printed an article about the forthcoming elections for the General Executive Council of the TGWU. The article was wrongly attributed to Tom Cashman who is standing in that election. In fact, the article was written by a member of the Alliance for Workers Liberty. We need to further point out that the article in no way represents the opinions of Tom Cashman who has no political association with the Alliance for Workers Liberty.