Solidarity 051, 13 May 2004

By Kate Ferguson The American far right and their moral agenda have now made their way to Britain. With massive funding by the Bush administration, they are promoting their 'silver ring' thing as the saviour of our immoral permissive youth (wear this silver ring to remind you just to say no). That's why it is more important than ever for us to be clear about our attitude towards teenage pregnancy. The Government has a two pronged approach to teenage pregnancy. The first strand of their strategy involves the inevitable target. They want to reduce the rate of conception among under-18s by 50% by...

Des Warren, who died on 24 April aged 66, was one of the "Shrewsbury pickets", a group of building workers who were jailed by the then Conservative government in 1973 after a bitter dispute. Warren was a steel fixer and a member of the Communist Party. He later joined the Workers' Revolutionary Party. In 1969 Warren was a UCATT shop steward on the Barbican site in central London and was involved in a major battle over the "lump" a cash payment system for building workers. Between 1968 and 1969 he was actively involved in the Building Workers Charter, which called for an end to the lump. During...

The 2004 conference of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty took place on 8-9 May in London. Daniel Randall reports. The year since AWL's last conference has not been an easy one. The millions mobilised on anti-war demonstrations have scattered, leaving life in the labour movement still low. We have seen the SWP liquidate the Socialist Alliance in favour of building the Respect Unity Coalition behind George Galloway; and the vast majority of the left collapse into classless, false 'anti-imperialism' over Iraq, ignoring the demands or even the existence of the new Iraqi workers' movement. The AWL...

By Alan Clarke , NUS National Executive (personal capacity) One of the issues that would have dominated this year's National Union of Students conference (held in April) - before the conference was cut short so that students could protest outside Westminster during the third vote on the Higher Education Bill - was the long running issue of reform of NUS. This is a lot more interesting than it sounds! Shortly before the conference, the national union's Directorate of full-time officials announced that NUS was suffering from a huge budget deficit - it annually spends half a million pounds more...

By Ruth Cashman Anyone who's watched TV or walked past a phonebox recently will be acquainted with the series of adverts produced by the Government to advertise the national launch of Further Education Maintenance Allowances for 16-18 year olds this September. In these works of modernist genius, a private detective-type, badly disguised as a fire hydrant, dinner trolley, etc, leaps out to give unsuspecting 15-year-olds the skinny on the new allowance. The adverts may not be funny, but you do get the definite feeling that the Government's taking the piss. The only thing you can say about EMAs...

By Beth Aze Sunday 25 April saw French fascist leader Jean-Marie Le Pen arrive in Manchester. Shouldn't have been too much of a surprise really. For all that Manchester is a hugely multi cultural city, Greater Manchester suffers the same problems as much of the UK. Poor housing, limited job opportunities, overstretched public services. Plenty of opportunity, then, to scapegoat Black and Asian communities. In Burnley the BNP is the main opposition party on the council. It is in the North West that BNP leader Nick Griffin has chosen to stand in the European elections. He needs as little as 8% to...

By Coral Harding , University of East London Student Union women's officer and Campaign for Free Education Almost 100 students occupied the UEL Vice-Chancellor's offices on 29 April in protest at plans to make cuts in the university's graphic fine arts department. Proposals to cut teaching hours directly have been beaten back by a joint campaign of the student union and the lecturer's union, but the administration still proposes to make major reductions in teaching provision by merging a number of different single honours courses. After a core of activists met in the University square, marched...

By Colin Foster Thursday 10 June will be a big election day, but, unfortunately, one with a small socialist presence. Seventy-eight Euro-MPs will be elected, by proportional representation in each of 12 giant regions. The regions vary in size from three Euro-MPs to 10. In London, the mayor and 25 members of the Greater London Assembly (GLA) will be elected. For mayor, voters can cast first- and second-choice votes, and the second-choice transfers will count if no candidate gets an outright majority of first choices. For the Assembly, electors have both a constituency vote (for Assembly members...

By Mike Rowley In the 10 June elections the British National Party is standing more candidates than ever before, including a full slate in the European elections (bar Northern Ireland), about 600 candidates in the local elections, and candidates in the London mayoral and Assembly elections. The BNP was formed in 1982 as a split from the fascist National Front by a group of people around John Tyndall, a Holocaust denier. Tyndall remained leader of the organisation until 1999, when he was replaced by Nick Griffin, another Holocaust denier who had the previous year received a suspended prison...

By Janine Booth The response of the left and labour movement to the growth of the fascists is to back "Unite Against Fascism" (UAF). This is a campaign that could have sufficient weight to have a real impact: turning people away from the BNP, recruiting for the labour movement and making the arguments on issues such as asylum. However, UAF's strategy at the moment is to urge people to vote for "anyone but the BNP", and to urge "legitimate parties", eg, the Tories, and "faith communities", to turn out their vote at the election. This strategy seems counterproductive to me. Its rationale is that...