Solidarity 270. 16 January 2013

Quentin Tarantino’s last film, Inglorious Basterds, walked a precarious line. Set in World War Two Europe, it dealt with very serious matters — the genocide of the Jews — but in Tarantino’s inimitable way: at least as much about movies as about history, very violent, very funny. It could have been a distasteful monstrosity. But to my mind it was a brilliant tour de force, with a delirious and unexpected climax that in fact was very thought-provoking. Django Unchained sets out to pull off the same trick but this time about slavery in America. Does it succeed? Django (Jamie Foxx) is a black...

Discussion of Israel-Palestine is often hampered by historical illiteracy. A few trite phrases denouncing “Zionism” is the best many on the left can do. A further problem is finding coherent interpretations of history. For both these reasons, Avi Shlaim’s Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, and Refutations deserves special attention. Shlaim is an engaging commentator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is one of the Israeli “new historians”, who challenged the official Zionist rendition of events. Other authors include Simha Flapan, Benny Morris and Ilan Pappé, although their...

At the end of December, two separate opinion polls found that two-thirds of Israelis would support a peace deal with the Palestinians involving a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as a shared capital. That includes 57 percent of those supporting incumbent right-wing party Likud, and 47 percent of those backing the even more right-wing opposition party Jewish Home. Yet almost no one in official Israeli politics advocates anything like such a solution, or even serious negotiations with the Palestinians. All the polls suggest that, in the general election on 22 January, a big...

On Sunday 27 January. North East London AWL will host a showing of Ken Loach’s film Land and Freedom as a social and fundraiser for Workers’ Liberty. Film showings can be a more accessible way of having political discussions than more traditional or formal meetings. Although Loach’s film is far from perfect politically, it is a good jumping off for a discussion about the Spanish Revolution and Civil War. A film showing is also a somewhat more congenial way of raising funds than standing on a street corner rattling a tin. It doesn’t take much – a space, a screen, and some food and drink. Your...

The Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) should arrange a further investigation into the charges brought by a woman member of rape by its former national secretary, and still leading organiser, Martin Smith. New SWP opposition blog: http://internationalsocialismuk.blogspot.co.uk/ . It should do that in the interests of justice, of justice being seen to be done, and of restoring the credibility of the left. The SWP should tell her, and another SWP woman who has raised lesser complaints, that the SWP will cooperate with them taking the case to bourgeois justice; or, if they don’t want to do that, as...

Three of Workers’ Liberty’s industrial and trade union “fractions” met on the weekend of 12-13 January — our school worker and health worker fractions met, as did our Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) fraction. “Fractions” are groups of Workers’ Liberty members and supporters who work in the same industry or who are active the same union. The school workers’ fraction mainly discussed Workers’ Liberty’s activity in LANAC (the Local Associations for National Action network), the rank-and-file caucus of school workers that Workers’ Liberty members were central to founding in 2012 (see...

Tell us a little bit about the work you do. I work for London Probation Trust as an administrator. The role entails giving clerical support to Probation Officers. I am also a trade union activist in our Unison branch. Do you and your workmates get the pay and conditions you deserve? No. We’ve had a pay freeze for two years. With the price of everything going up, in real terms we’re taking a pay cut, year in year out. Our conditions aren’t bad in comparison to some other workplaces, however this is now at risk with the looming privatisation. How have recent moves towards privatisation affected...

In summer 2011 I was on holiday in Barcelona with my partner when I got a stomach bug. Unable to access a doctor, I decided to go into the local hospital. The area we were staying, Nou Baris, is a working-class suburb of Barcelona with a high number of Latin American migrant workers and a traveller population. Walking up to the hospital we noticed that there were banners draped out of the local flats and shops, all opposing the closure of the hospital. On arrival at the hospital we saw that there were some tents outside and a stall with several people doing a petition, giving out leaflets...

On 8 January a raft of capitalist bigwigs published a letter in the Financial Times . Richard Branson and others warned prime minister David Cameron against seeking “a wholesale renegotiation of our EU membership, which would almost certainly be rejected”. The fall-out “would be to put our membership of the EU at risk”. On Friday 18 January Cameron will announce his response, in a speech in Amsterdam. Cameron wants to renegotiate to some extent (unclear); get exemption from EU worker-rights clauses, such as the Working Time Direction and the Agency Workers’ Directive; and then stage a...

Private companies are being given access to ever greater swathes of public services, buying the right to run for profit what ought to be socially provided to meet human need. The Tories’ “Big Society” scheme was supposed to be privatisation with a friendly, local face — public services being run by local businesses and third-sector organisations as well as larger companies. In reality, only the big have prevailed in the “Big Society”; a handful of multinational capitalist firms dominate the provision of privatised public services. Serco, a global corporation with revenue of over £2 billion (to...