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In October 2016 a disgusting, anonymous allegation of serious criminal behaviour by myself appeared on the Stalinist Red London Facebook page. Since there are no labour movement mechanisms to deal with Red London Facebook posts I immediately reported the libel to the police and encouraged them to...

The TSSA transport union is supporting a petition calling for justice for Belly Mujinga, the transport worker who died of coronavirus after being spat at on the concourse of Victoria Station: see a report here and the petition, already signed by over 750,000 people, here .

Enough of Boris Johnson! The way he has conscripted his Cabinet ministers to defend his wretched Rasputin, Dominic Cummings, is a symptom of much more. We need to get rid of the Tory government and the whole nexus of privilege and profiteering which it serves. Getting rid of Johnson will be a start....

The government plans to cut off funding from the end of June for councils to get on-the-streets homeless people inside. More than 60 homelessness organisations have signed a protest letter: bit.ly/noone-out. The emergency ban on evicting tenants is also due to end on 25 June. The London Renters’...

Associate Lecturers (ALs) and Graduate Trainee Teachers (GTTs) at Goldsmiths University, London, plan to take action against the freezing of their short-term teaching contracts, against the withholding of payment for hours worked under lockdown (promised but not delivered), and against the decision...

We have reached the £3,000 mark in our appeal for £10,000 by 22 November, as donations from Stuart, Chris, John and Bryan take us to £3,125. Since 30 May we have seen the first large protests since the Covid-19 emergency hit. We still don’t have the “ecology” of meetings, demonstrations, and street...

Three of France’s trade-union confederations — CGT, FSU, and Solidaires — have (26 May) got together with Greenpeace, ATTAC (the Tobin Tax campaign), and others to produce an “exit plan from the crisis”: see here . It includes: • “requisitioning of factories and businesses to produce masks and...

On 30 May, four scientists from the government’s SAGE advisory group went public saying that the Tories’ easing of the lockdown, including the wider opening of schools, is unwise at this time. The number of cases and the infection rate are still high, and we don’t know whether or how much children...

On 2 June Forward Momentum published its “plan to take Momentum forward” . This 1,075 word document was put together following two gatherings of delegates mainly elected in local and other (e.g. BME) meetings of FM supporters. In that sense, the process was reasonably open. There were, however,...

Economic research at the University of Essex has warned of job losses of around the 6.5 million mark as a result of Covid-19. That would equate to about a quarter of the UK’s total jobs, with more than half of the positions in certain sectors being lost. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found...

One hundred and fifty union and Labour activists have signed the statement for public ownership and provision of social care initiated by the Safe and Equal campaign. That includes a wide range of union officers and activists from care, health and local government, and many dozens of Labour Party...

Both the main groupings standing candidates for Momentum’s national coordinating group (NCG), Forward Momentum and Momentum Renewal, have now announced their full, 24-strong slates of candidates. Nominations, and sign-ups for Momentum membership to vote in the election, close on 11 June, and voting...

The Safe and Equal campaign safeandequal.org is pressing on three fronts. Firstly: we want to popularise the idea, adopted as Labour Party policy in conference 2019, and recently re-raised by Nadia Whittome MP, that the care sector must be re-organised as a well-funded public service, rather than as...

At the end of April, British Airways announced intentions to lay off 12,000 people, up to 30% of its workforce. Heathrow’s Chief Executive has warned that they may decide to follow suit, while on 20 May Rolls Royce — which constructs, among other things, airplane components — announced plans to make...

The government, and many of its critics too, cite “test-trace-isolate” as almost a cure-all to control the virus while still easing the lockdown. The labour movement cannot claim expertise on the details. But we must demand that the operation be accompanied by full isolation pay for all, and run as...

We’re now six months on from when Covid-19 emerged in Wuhan, China. Eleven weeks from the start of deaths rising exponentially in Europe, then the USA, and lockdowns spreading. About eleven weeks, also, from when the first lockdown-easing started, in China; about 8 weeks from the start of lockdown...

On 27 May Boris Johnson revealed he was unaware of the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) policy that denies social security to migrants and their children. At a committee hearing, Labour MP Stephen Timms raised the plight of a family in his constituency left destitute and without support during the...

Normally the morning shift change is quiet, but Saturday morning is different — everyone is angry and anxious to get out the door. V, the team leader, is nearly bellowing the night’s events at the operator taking over from him; “It was midnight, and then everything just went pitch black. We sat...