Solidarity 051, 13 May 2004

Socialists candidates Alison Brown and Daniel Murphy are standing in the local government elections in Sheffield and Manchester respectively. Alison Brown is standing in Burngreave ward, Sheffield, for the fourth time. On the previous three occasions Alison, an ambulance worker, has increased her vote each time. She won 8.1% in 2003. In past elections she was the Socialist Alliance candidate; this time she will be standing as "Democratic Socialist Alliance - People before Profit". Burngreave is a poor, inner-city ward, containing large Yemeni, Somali, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Iraqi Kurdish...

Charlotte Mason reviews 'Suitcases and Sanctuary', an exhibition at the Museum of Immigration and Diversity. Read this review here .

The latest editorial in Solidarity (3/50) expresses a position on the current conflict in Iraq which I believe moves us too far towards some form of critical support for the US. The editorial seems to portray the current US offensive in Iraq as being a fight for a "relatively progressive" programme against Islamic reactionaries. This, I would argue, is certainly not the case. To highlight the weaknesses in the editorial, it is useful to compare it to Clive's article in the same paper which is well researched and far more reasonable. The editorial portrays the US offensive as a battle to stop...

Am I the only reader to find Sean Matgamna's take on the assassinations of Yassin and Rantissi a surprising line of argument for a leftwing publication? How can a revolutionary socialist end up taking a stance considerably more hawkish than the average EU foreign minister? Sean writes ("Bush and Blair back Sharon - Unions must condemn Blair!", Solidarity 3/50): "The assassination in the last month of two of the central leaders of Hamas points to an Israeli policy that now relies entirely on force to deal with its Palestinian enemies. "On one level, of course, Israel is entitled to defend...

I am one of the two innocent men framed for the 1981 betting shop murder in "Toxteth". I don't expect people to support me when I say I am innocent, what I do expect is that I am given the chance to prove I am innocent. Can you help me? Please make all politicians aware of this case. From a summary by Bruce Kent: "Raymond Gilbert was convicted solely on the basis of a confession obtained after two days and a night in police custody with no other persons present and on an admission subsequently made in court. Until she was intimidated with threat of prosecution there was even someone whose...

By a civil servant Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCSU) working in the Social Security offices and Jobcentres in east London walked out at the beginning of May over the suspension of a supervisor. This action was part of a series of walkouts in offices around the UK in Glasgow, Lancaster, Morecambe, Sheffield, Manchester, central London, Leicester. The offices affected in east London were at Hackney, Stratford, City, Poplar and Hoxton, and the jobcentres in East Ham, Stratford and Poplar. The walkouts have arisen from an increasingly bitter pay dispute. Staff members...

Workers at Euro Packaging in Birmingham, which makes paper bags, have been on strike against redundancies and for a 37.5 hour week. The workers are members of the Graphical, Paper and Media Union. The employers are notorious for bad pay and conditions (some workers, say the union, work up to 80 hours a week and most are on minimum wage or just above). The GPMU was recently organised and won recognition. The employers have responded by "selecting" key organisers for redundancy.

Click here for the series on The Roots of Bolshevism of which this article is part In previous issues of Solidarity, we have outlined in some detail the history of revolutionary populism in 19th-century Russia. We will later discuss the development of the early Marxist critique of this populism and examine the process in which Marxism came in the 1880s and 1890s, in part, to displace populism. This brilliant and concise account by Leon Trotsky, written in the 1930s, of the history we have covered sums up. It has been abridged from Trotsky's account, in The Young Lenin. The movement of...

Chris Barrett Derailment Pay action Chris Barrett Last year tube driver Chris Barrett hit the headlines when he was sacked from London Underground after they filmed him visiting a squash court while he was off work with an ankle injury. His doctor backed him up, saying the exercise for appropriate treatment for his recovery. London Underground went ahead and dismissed him. The background to the sacking is the employer's policy of tailing and videoing one in three workers on long-term sick leave! Chris was vilified in the press. His personnel records were leaked to the press. Ken Livingstone...

Nursery Nurses across Scotland have been on all-out strike from 1 March 2004. The basic pay for this vitally important job runs from around £10,000 for a newly qualified nursery nurse up to £13,800 after 10 years' experience. In a dispute that has been running for three years UNISON have made a claim for nursery nurses to take their pay up to £14,000-£18,000 with merit for nursery nurses working longer hours and weeks. They also want a career structure for promoted staff. In recent years the job has seen numerous added responsibilities but the pay has stayed the same - abysmal. COSLA (the...