Monthly Archives: October 2017

UNISON yesterday challenged all five Health Trust Boards in Northern Ireland to refuse to comply with a Tory government demand for cuts. In addresses to all five Trust Board meetings, Unison representatives said: ‘Chair, Board members, ‘We start our contribution by paying tribute to the public and our members who...

IT IS often said that a society is judged by how it treats its elderly and its youth. Young people, as we know, are targeted by the Tory government, exploited as cheap labour, driven onto zero-hours contracts, or if they try and further their education, drowned in tens of...

ALMOST a third of fire safety inspectors have been cut by this Tory government, a new report revealed, leaving buildings which are potential fire traps unchecked, putting the general public’s lives in jeopardy. The Fire Brigades Union (FBU), who compiled the figures from a series of Freedom of Information requests,...

THIS WEEK the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued another warning that the world capitalist financial system is on the verge of a gigantic crash of historic proportions as the debt pile reaches a historic high of $135 trillion in the G20 wealthiest countries. The IMF warns that this colossal...

Undercroft Gallery 112-134 Market Place Norwich NR2 Until October 14 HURRY to catch the ‘Art of Revolution’ exhibition taking place in Norwich, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Russian Revolution. It explores its significance and cultural legacy. The venue is the Undercroft, St Peters St, Norwich – an excellent underground...

‘ON THIS basis I am not able, in the current circumstances, to recommend to the European Council that we should start discussion on the future relationship,’ between the EU and the UK, the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier announced yesterday, confirming that the Brexit negotiations are at a...

ASYLUM seekers who had been tortured in the country from which they have fled were wrongly incarcerated in detention centres in the UK while their case was processed, a court has ruled. The judgment is expected to lead to dozens of claims for unlawful detention against the Home Office. Following...

THE TORY leadership is now in complete disarray, with PM May repeatedly refusing on Tuesday to say how she would vote if there was another EU referendum. The so-called champion of Brexit said: ‘I’m not going to answer hypothetical questions.’ She said of her support for Remain in the 2016...

‘AT THE end of the day this is being portrayed as a trade war, but it’s workers who will be suffering, thousands of them face losing their jobs,’ Unite Bombardier Convenor Noel Gibson told News Line yesterday. Gibson was leading a delegation of Bombardier workers who met with MPs in...

A DEPUTATION of Bombardier workers will be meeting with MPs at the House of Commons this morning and will press the government into taking action to defend jobs, skills and communities and stand up to Boeing. They will be unveiling a giant banner outside parliament at 9.20am urging MPs from...

PM MAY last Monday afternoon, in her first statement to MPs in parliament since her Florence speech last month and her debacle at the Tory Party conference last week, concentrated on trying to keep both wings of the Tory Party, leavers and remainers, apart and relatively happy, as she...

UNISON is working together with other education unions to hold a Parliamentary Lobby Against School Cuts on 24th October, to show MPs that school funding is in crisis and to demand real increases in funding. In September, the Department for Education announced the outcome of its consultation into the future...

PRESIDENT Mahmoud Abbas told the ongoing meeting of the Fatah Revolutionary Council that the way to achieving national unity requires some time, the final communiqué of the meeting said on Sunday. He said only Egypt, the current broker of the Palestinian reconciliation process, shall have a say in national reconciliation...

‘HOW many more families does the minister estimate will be made homeless this winter as a result of this government’s refusal to pause the roll-out of Universal Credit?’ Debbie Abrahams, Labour shadow work and pensions secretary, asked her Tory counterpart in Parliament yesterday. She continued: ‘As we have heard, Universal...

THE DRIVE by the bosses to force every worker in Britain into the so-called ‘gig economy’ has hit the headlines again this week with the news that the food delivery company, Deliveroo, has been setting up pop-up kitchens in car parks and industrial estates across the country without deigning...

OVER the weekend, Picturehouse cinema chain BECTU members continued to defy a threat to sack them if they continued their strike action in a dispute over pay and conditions. The workers began a wave of nine strike actions last Wednesday, with five London Picturehouses – Ritzy, Hackney Picturehouse, Picturehouse Central,...

PM MAY is battling for her survival and the survival of her government with the big bosses and bankers desperate to prevent her fall fearing that it will lead to a Labour government, and worst of all, a massive offensive by the working class to take back all that...

AN UNDER siege Theresa May was fighting for her political life yesterday as she suggested she would not shy away from sacking foreign secretary Boris Johnson, a move that would split the Tory Party. The Prime Minister has managed to face down, for the moment, a post conference call...

PM MAY, who had previously described her leadership as ‘strong and stable’, was yesterday struggling to keep her head above water as the Tory rebellion to knife her premiership erupted into the open. May protested that she has the ‘full support of her cabinet’ after a former party chairman, Grant...

HOMELESSNESS has risen by a startling 134% since the Tories came to power in 2010, with the amount of people sleeping on the street rising by 60% in the same period. Figures from March this year show that there are now 77,000 families living in temporary accommodation, like...

PALESTINE''S ambassador to the European Union, Abdel Rahim al-Farra said on Thursday that EU officials had informed him that financial support to the Palestinian government would be increased following the signing of the Palestinian reconciliation agreement. Farra said that the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council will hold a meeting to discuss...

HUNDREDS of residents have received letters confirming Glasgow tower blocks have the very same combustible cladding that rapidly spread the fire in the Grenfell inferno, which claimed the lives of so many men, women and children. Glasgow has the highest population of tower blocks in the UK, with an estimated...

WHEN the Tory Daily Telegraph runs on its front page a headline that Theresa May is ‘limping into oblivion’ it couldn’t be a clearer message that she is finished as prime minister. But it is not just May that experienced a total meltdown at the end of the Tory conference...

BECTU members campaigning for the Living Wage at the Picturehouse circuit began nine days of strike action on Wednesday, 4th October, which coincided with the start of the BFI London Film Festival. On Wednesday, all London sites – Crouch End, Central, Hackney, Ritzy and East Dulwich – were on strike...

CATALONIA will declare independence from Spain in a matter of days, the leader of the autonomous region said yesterday following the referendum, which savage Spanish police attacks could not stop, and which overwhelmingly decided on Catalan independence. President Carles Puigdemont added that his government would ‘act at the end of...

PRIME Minister May’s pledge to ‘renew the British dream’ turned into a nightmare yesterday, as she delivered the closing speech to the Tory Party Conference in Manchester. She opened her hour-long speech with an apology, saying: ‘I called that election … but we did not get the victory we wanted...

EGYPTIAN President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi played a pivotal role in helping Fatah and Hamas overcome their differences to form a National Consensus Government in Gaza. Fattah al-Sisi’s special envoy to the Palestinian reconciliation, Khaled Fawzi, arrived in Gaza on Tuesday afternoon coming from Ramallah where he met with President Mahmoud...

THE arrival of Prime Minister Ram Hamdallah and an Egyptian delegation as part of a fresh attempt to restore Palestinian national unity dominated the front page headlines in Palestinian Arabic dailies on Monday. The dailies reported the national consensus government headed by Hamdallah was due to make its first visit...

THE Palestinian National Consensus Government held its first meeting in three years in Gaza yesterday, a day after arriving in the besieged Gaza Strip following the success of reconciliation efforts. Good news indeed! Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah told the cabinet at the start of its meeting that his government is...

TORY health secretary Hunt is trying to create an Uber-style workforce in the NHS, with nurses and hospital staff on flexible working hours, just like the gig economy, the GMB warned yesterday. he union was reacting to Hunt’s speech to the Tory Party conference in which he said that nursing...

THE WEST London Council of Action Big Bike Ride to Save Ealing Hospital on Sunday was a great success. More than two dozen riders with red Save Ealing Hospital flags on their bikes were cheered and clapped as they made their way from Ealing Hospital to Charing Cross Hospital in...

PICTUREHOUSE Cinema workers have vowed to defend the right to strike, defy the threats being made against them and proceed with their nine days of strike action to demand a living wage. ‘Any employee taking part in those strikes is likely to be dismissed,’ Picturehouse wrote in a threatening letter...

THE TORY Party conference opened in Manchester on Sunday to scenes that reflected the terminal splits and divisions that dominate the minority government of Theresa May and which itself reflects the political and economic crisis gripping the ruling class. Just how deep the crisis is for the Tories was demonstrated...