Solidarity 3/153, 12 June 2009

A young child is removed from his family, taken to live in a remote community, made to engage in strange rituals, denied the company of ordinary children, dressed in unusual clothes and surrounded by adults who worship him. Are these scenes from some despotic cult? No, this is the way that new religious leaders are “nurtured” under the auspices of what are widely held to be the enlightened and progressive practices of Tibetan Buddhism.

Joe Flynn reviews Journal for Plague Lovers by the Manic Street Preachers.

The Manics’ new album has been hyped in the press as a return to their 1994 peak. All the lyrics are taken from notes left by Richey Edwards, a former band member who disappeared in February 1995.

On 6-7 June members of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty were on the streets of south east London campaigning for our candidate in the next general election. Jill Mountford will be standing against New Labour’s Harriet Harman in Camberwell and Peckham.

Comrades and supporters ran stalls, leafleted, sold our paper, and canvassed the area around Camberwell. Like many inner London neighbourhoods, Camberwell has some well-off residents, but the big majority are working class. Canvassing and discussing on street corners is a very useful, interesting experience.

On Wednesday 10 June, the telecom sector conference of the post and telecom union CWU heavily defeated the sector Executive on the issue of the “Service Delivery Transformation” deal for BT Openreach engineers.

The Executive majority, the so-called “Effective Left”, had proposed the deal as the only way to avoid compulsory redundancies.