Solidarity 086, 12 January 2006

Inside the student movement: Education not for sale

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%. In other words, it seems that if you force students to pay £3,000 for the privilege of going to university, less of them are going to want to do it. Shocker. According to the same article, there have also been shifts in the numbers for applications to particular courses. One university registrar commented, "there could be a misunderstanding...

Fearing to love

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) ... The last mainstream film with a gay central character was Philadelphia, over ten years ago - in which the Tom Hanks/Antonio Banderas relationship was rigorously desexualised. So something, at least, has moved on. Actors are no longer terrified of playing gay; perhaps television has helped prove that...

Morales installed in Bolivia

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. Turnout was 85% which was also much higher than in previous Bolivian elections. Morales is due to become the first indigenous president in a country that has a large indigenous majority. The MAS also won 78 members of congress, with another 78 going to right wing parties and one to the indigenous party, MIP. This means that...

BA: Second union official sacked

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. The union involved, at BA and at Gate Gourmet, the TGWU, was so cowed that it did not even issue a press release to complain about the sacking, let alone start a campaign to ballot the workers for action to defend their shop steward. The Gate Gourmet dispute thus seems, sadly, to be ending in a complete rout. According to the Financial Times...

TGWU elections: a correction and an apology

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. Below the article about the TGWU election we printed an article about events following the Gate Gourmet dispute. Although this had no...

Writing on the wall

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. But, he said, the award would not stop him from "speaking out'. Now we know what he means. Interviewed on 3 January on Radio 4, Sacranie was prompted to "speak out" on homosexuality. "Certainly it is a practice that in terms of health, in terms of the moral issues that comes along in a society, is not acceptable. Each of our...

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