Solidarity 404, 11 May 2016

In elections for the Scottish Parliament the SNP triumphed (although with six seats less than in 2011, and two seats short of an absolute majority). The Tory vote was up by 9%, doubling its number of seats. And Labour slumped down by 8%, costing it 13 seats and pushing it into third place. This was a remarkable achievement by the SNP. During its nine years in power at Holyrood it has imposed cuts on local authorities doubled the size of the cuts imposed on Holyrood by Westminster, slashed student places and teacher numbers in further education, and cut spending on the NHS. It has presided over...

The Trade Union Bill received Royal Assent and became law on Wednesday 4 May. The final law that was passed included amendments including: an independent review of electronic balloting with a view to implementing it shortly after its conclusion; the opt-in to political funds will now only apply to new members and will have a 12 month delay on starting; plans were dropped for the compulsory ending of check-off in public services; dropping of requirement to provide detailed picketing information and social media campaigning two weeks in advance; strike mandates will now last 6 months, or nine...

Various large construction companies are to pay compensation to workers they illegally prevented from finding jobs. Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Costain, Laing O Rourke, Sir Robert McAlpine, Skanska UK and Vinci Construction will pay out around £75 million to 771 of the people they victimised through putting confidential details into secret vetting documents. In 2009, a raid by the Information Commissioner's office uncovered a database of 3,123 workers and activists used by 44 companies to vet potential employees and exclude known trade unionists. Seven years later, these workers have finally...

Talks between the Department of Health, NHS employers and junior doctors representatives have restarted. The talks, offered by a Health Secretary who has up until now been resolutely refusing to talk, will happen over five days, ending on Friday 13 May. For the period of the talks the government has agreed to pause the imposition of the junior doctors contract. The fact that the talks are happening shows the Health Secretary feels unable to face down the mounting pressure on him. However the government has said nothing which indicates that they are willing to compromise on the key issue...

On 4 May, the Tory government backed down and said it would after all admit some lone child refugees from Syria. On 25 April the Tories had voted down proposals in Parliament to admit 3,000 children, but by 4 May they had to retreat. They are still evasive. They won't say how many. None will be admitted until the end of 2016, and none that hadn't been registered in other EU countries before 20 March this year. The government suggests it will supply funds to councils to help settle the refugees, but won't be specific. It was another victory against the migrant-haters on 5 May when Labour's...

Broadcasters, actors and screenwriters have jumped to defend the BBC against the Culture Secretary, John Whittingdale, who recently reportedly told Cambridge University's Conservative Association that closing the BBC was a tempting prospect. According to the comedy writer Armando Ianucci, writing in the Guardian, John Whittingdale has been assuring BBC bosses that its future is safe, that the TV Licence is safe and that it will preserve its editorial independence while also running down the BBC by releasing a White Paper calling for presenters wages to be made public, stopping the production...

On Wednesday 4 May the government sacked Natasha Devon from her unpaid post as mental health champion for schools. Evidently it concluded that the parents protest the day before against excessive testing, when thousands kept Year 2 children off school, showed that Devon was having too much effect. Devon describes herself as a bleeding heart liberal leftie, but the government appointed her in August 2015 to show it was doing something about mental health. Devon continued to speak out. This government and the coalition before them have engineered a social climate where it's really difficult for...

It's big psychic shock coming to terms with the reality that Trump a bigoted, buffoonish blowhard, loathed by 70 per cent of the population will have his name on the ballot in November as the presidential candidate of one of the two political parties that run the most powerful nation in the world. Of course, Trump's victory didn't come out of nowhere. For years, the Republican Party has cultivated white middle-class fear and rage the meat and potatoes of the Trump campaign to build a rabidly right-wing voting base in support of its traditional ruling-class agenda of promoting corporate power...