Solidarity 259, 3 October 2012

General strike: neither ploy nor dream

There had been general strikes before 1905. The so-called Plug Riots of July-August 1842 were in fact a spontaneously-spreading general strike over large parts of England against wage cuts and for the ten-hour working day. The Belgian workers launched three general strikes, in 1891, 1893, and 1902, to widen voting rights. But the mass strike movement which erupted in Russia in 1905 after ten years of strikes and agitation by a fresh and growing industrial working class, and after the defeat of Tsarism in its war with Japan, was something else again. It was a new starting point for all...

Miliband, or the “two nations”

In his speech to Labour conference on Tuesday 2 October, Labour Party leader Ed Miliband took up the “One Nation” idea of Benjamin Disraeli, a Tory prime minister of the 19th century. In one sense this deserves the sneer from Scottish National Party politician Angus Robertson: “The extraordinary message in Ed Miliband’s speech is that Labour now amounts to nothing more than a party of one nation Toryism”. “One Nation” was the catchcry of many Tories in the 1950s and 1960s. On the other hand, the Disraeli who coined the phrase “the two nations” to describe class-divided England in 1844-5 was...

Seize the banks!

As Martin Wolf, chief economics writer of the big-business Financial Times, has noted: “banks, as presently constituted and managed, cannot be trusted to perform any publicly important function”. He wrote that after it came out that big banks have been systematically fiddling the Libor rate, a reference interest rate used as a benchmark for trillions in financial transactions across the world. The banks perform many publicly important functions. They control the bulk of the fluid, mobile wealth in society. They stand at the crossroads where investment decisions are made. They are at the middle...

AWL debates perspectives for the next year

The Alliance for Workers' Liberty gathers in London on 27-28 October for our yearly conference. One big task there is to assess where we and the labour movement are, and map out how to go forward. Here, abridged, are three contributions to debate: excerpts from the main perspectives document put out for discussion by the National Committee, a criticism from Tom Unterrainer and a response from Martin Thomas. 1. After the lull (NC) The global capitalist crisis remains febrile, and new upheavals are therefore likely within the next year. We need to prepare ourselves. In Britain we have had a...

Not just a set of boobs and a smile

“We are asking Dominic Mohan to drop the bare boobs from The Sun newspaper. We are asking very nicely…” So begins Lucy-Anne Holmes’ petition to the editor of the Sun newspaper. The petition (41,000 signatories so far) has renewed debate on the Sun’s 40 year old “Page 3”. Though polite petitions are unlikely to persuade former showbiz hack Mohan, if the Sun were to get rid of Page 3, it would be a very good thing. Some liberals and socialists will not want to back a call for censorship, nor line up with the prudish. They may argue this campaign is no substitute for systematic criticism of all...

Lamont pushes Scottish Labour rightwards

Poor old Mrs McDonald starved to death in a cash-strapped NHS hospital last week because your dad has a free bus pass and your daughter gets a free university education. That was Scottish Labour Party leader Johann Lamont’s message to Scottish voters in a heavily trailed policy speech last week. Like Scottish Labour’s policy on the 2014 referendum, there had been no prior discussion with the party membership or affiliated unions about this “new” policy initiative. Lamont argued: “The idea that Scotland is a land where everything is free is a lie. Someone always pays for it in the end...

Labour simmers in Manchester

In the first three days of Labour Party conference (30 Sep - 4 Oct, in Manchester), delegates have three times voted down the Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC) report. Each time the chair, Michael Cashman, has bulldozed on, declaring the report accepted and ignoring calls for a card vote. Delegates had a struggle to get the composite on the NHS onto conference floor, and avoid it being gutted. Many other proposals were manipulated off the agenda. Two rank-and-file rule-change proposals were rejected for debate after being held up for a year on the grounds that the National Executive had...

Education bloc at O20

University of London students have organised an “education bloc” on the TUC’s 20 October demonstration. ULU Vice President Daniel Cooper said, “The government’s austerity agenda affects us all. The attacks on education form part of the wider assault on public services. “Many students now work part-time or are destined for a precarious job market. On 20 October we will be marching together with the organised labour movement to send a message of defiance and opposition to the Coalition.” The call is backed by several Unison and University and College Union (UCU) branches, as well as ULU’s...

Teachers push for escalation

On 3 October the National Union of Teachers begins its “non-strike” industrial action, a sort of work-to-rule, jointly with the other large teachers’ union, NASUWT. The NUT postponed the start from 26 September, apparently because of some question about whether the legally-due seven days’ notice had been received by all employers. The rank-and-file local associations network LANAC met on 29 September in Leeds to take stock. Almost all delegates agreed that teachers are already winning limited but important victories by demanding head teachers comply with the work-to-rule. Union members are...

Triumph of the ideologues? Some lessons

Recent events on the Australian left will probably stir wide discussion among activists internationally as the news filters out. A shorter version of this article is in Solidarity 259 . The two Castroite groups in Australia, the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and the Socialist Alliance (SA), are talking about merging into Socialist Alternative, the group there which claims the same tradition as the SWP in Britain but is out of favour with the SWP. Probably Socialist Alternative will follow up this coup by a new unity offensive on the fourth of the larger left groups in Australia, the SWP...

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