Monthly Archives: May 2022
STRIKING cleaners, domestic workers and hostesses employed by the public services privateer Mitie, got great support from local people as they held a powerful march around St George’s hospital in Tooting, south west London, yesterday. The GMB members are fighting to be brought back in-house as directly employed NHS workers...
RUSSIAN forces have destroyed 183 Ukrainian combat aircraft, 1,064 unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), and 128 helicopters since the beginning of their special military operation in Ukraine, Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said on Sunday. In addition, 325 anti-aircraft missile systems, 3,323 tanks and other armoured combat vehicles, 451...
MICK LYNCH, general secretary of the RMT rail workers union, has denounced Labour leader Keir Starmer for being ‘not on the side of workers’ and said that Labour had ‘lost touch’ with its support for workers under his leadership. The RMT is preparing to carry out the overwhelming vote for...
THE BALLOT for a new mandate to continue the powerful RMT Night Tube strike on London Underground has reached a crucial point, with the poll closing next weekend and the result due to be announced on Tuesday 7th June. The strike since last November is already the longest ever strike...
A great night was had by all at the Young Socialists Benefit Concert in North Kensington, west London on Saturday night. It was held at the Harrow Club in north Kensington, right next to the Grenfell Tower, with many local people in the audience.
There was great food for everyone, which...
NABIL Abu Rudeineh, the spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas, said yesterday that East Jerusalem, with its Islamic and Christian holy sites, will remain the eternal capital of the State of Palestine, in accordance with international legitimacy resolutions and international law. He was responding to a statement by the Israeli PM...
CHANCELLOR Sunak received Labour cheers for his statement in parliament on Thursday, as the Tories fought to regain some popularity after the continuing exposure of how Tory leaders, such as the PM and the Chancellor, broke Covid regulations, and displayed complete contempt for the millions of workers who carried...
‘AS of May 27, 2022, the forces of the DPR and the LPR supported by the Russian army’s firepower, liberated and established full control of 220 populated areas on the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic’, the territorial defence headquarters said on Friday Forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR)...
At exactly 1:00 am, on 16 May 2021, Israeli jets bombarded a densely populated residential area in the centre of Gaza City, Al-Wehda Street, without any prior warning. The bombardment lasted for just a few minutes but killed 43 people (19 of whom were children), including 14 women and...
‘HIGH inflation is causing acute distress to the people of this country,’ Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak admitted yesterday. Making a statement to MPs in the House of Commons on the Cost of Living Support, he said: ‘The British people understand no government can solve every problem, particularly the complex and...
No-fault eviction court proceedings are up 41% on pre-pandemic levels, homelessness charity Shelter has reported, with new government figures revealing that 5,890 landlords in England started no-fault eviction court proceedings against tenants between January and March 2022. The number of renters facing eviction continues to soar after the eviction ban...
ORY chancellor Rishi Sunak announced an emergency cost of living package to the House of Commons yesterday, as soaring inflation that is driving millions of families into poverty is leading to an explosion of the class struggle in the UK and worldwide. With the energy regulator Ofgem announcing this week...
RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch spoke out defiantly yesterday in response to Tory strike breaking threats to pass laws to ‘ensure minimum staffing levels in the event of a national rail strike’. Asked on Sky News about Tory plans to bring in new anti-union laws to ensure ‘minimum staffing levels...
SENIOR civil servant Sue Gray’s anticipated report into illegal lockdown gatherings held in and around Downing Street by members of the government has been published in full. It included numerous criminal actions by government officials who considered that the law did not apply to them. Gray investigated 16 illegal events...
Workers across the United States, including in multi-national corporations like Starbucks and Amazon, as well as in the video game industry, are joining trade unions for the first time in their tens of thousands. A group of Activision Blizzard workers has voted in favour of unionising at a studio that...
WORKERS up and down the country, struggling to feed their families in the face of a massive price inflation that is growing all the time, will be cheering the decision of RMT workers to vote for strike action across Network Rail and its operating companies. The RMT statement announcing the...
FOLLOWING performers’ union Equity’s demonstration outside the Phoenix Dance Theatre in Leeds on Monday morning to demand that the contemporary dance company reverse their decision to lay off dancers and other employees for seven months on £100 per month payments, the company reversed its plans. On Monday evening, Dominic Bascombe, Equity’s Regional Official for...
TORY ministers are in a state of despair over the complete inability of the Johnson government to come up with any measures to ‘help’ the millions of people in the UK facing raging inflation and a cost of living crisis that is plunging them into extreme poverty, leading to...
THREE-QUARTERS of the thousands of children who are strip-searched by police forces around the UK each year are black, the BBC’s File On 4 revealed yesterday. The radio programme focused on the case of ‘Olivia’, a young autistic girl who was already suffering from self harming, but attempted to take...
THE RMT transport union is holding a network-wide strike of 4,000 station staff members on London Underground on Monday 6th June, bringing the Tube to a standstill immediately after the four-day bank holiday. The action will start a minute after midnight and last for 24 hours, the union said yesterday,...
THE RUSSIAN army struck at warehouses in the Zhytomyr region in the west of Ukraine on Saturday. High-precision long-range sea-based ‘Caliber’ missiles reached the target at the Malin railway station in the Zhytomyr region during a Russian special operation. The target was a large batch of weapons and equipment from...
THE ANNUAL meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) at the Swiss resort of Davos started yesterday on the theme of ‘history at a turning point’, with the stated intention of ‘offering world leaders an opportunity to take stock of the state of the world and shape partnerships and...
THE LEADERS of the Unite and RMT unions warned yesterday that they will mobilise their full power to defeat Tory plans to ban the right to strike. Transport Secretary Shapps announced in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph that the Tory government is drawing up new anti-union legislation requiring minimum numbers of rail...
srael’s ruling coalition government has become a minority in parliament after an Arab lawmaker stepped down in protest at ongoing Israeli forces’ aggression against Palestinians in al-Quds (Jerusalem), and violence at the funeral of slain Palestinian reporter Shireen Abu Akleh. The decision by Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi of the Meretz party...
THE cost of living is now rocketing thanks to PM Johnson’s and Foreign Secretary Truss’ determination to inflame the war in the Ukraine and turn it into ‘our war’ against Russia. World food prices are now rocketing upwards while trade unions are seeking to do their duty, which is to...
JOB SEEKERS are struggling, says the CGT French trade union federation. It said: ‘More job seekers work part-time or under short contracts, while being registered with Pôle Emploi. The number of firms going into administrative write-off is exploding.’
Pôle Emploi and Dares have published the figures for job seekers registered with...
ISRAEL’S governing coalition has become a minority in parliament after lawmaker Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi from the Meretz party, quit her post. Zoabi announced her resignation from the government, to coalition leaders Prime Minister Naftali Bennet and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid in a letter that was circulated on Israeli media on...
SUE GRAY INTENDS TO NAME civil servants who broke Covid rules at lockdown parties in and around Downing Street. The senior civil servant will publish her full report on the parties after the Metropolitan Police wound up their investigation. The Met Police have not named any of the 83 individuals who...
DWP STAFF are to get police powers, the Tory government announced yesterday to investigate the poorest people on Universal Credit. The DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) declared on its website: ‘A £600 million plan to fight fraud in the welfare system will introduce a range of new powers and...
THE front page of yesterday’s Daily Telegraph carried an article headlined ‘Vladimir Putin “weaponising” world’s food supplies.’ This story of the dastardly Putin being responsible for plunging hundreds of millions of people across the world into starvation was faithfully reproduced by LBC radio and other news platforms. According to this account,...
The UK government ‘failed in its duty of care’ to doctors and the healthcare workforce in its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, says the BMA (British Medical Association). A major review into the UK government’s handling of the pandemic and its impact on the NHS, the health of the population,...
THE TORY government is now presiding over huge increases in prices, the biggest increases in 40 years. A massive inflation is under way with the Bank of England admiting that it can do nothing about it! UK inflation jumped to 9% in the 12 months to April, up from...
SCHOOL caterers will have to serve children smaller portions or use cheaper ingredients, they were warned yesterday. Andrew Selley, boss of Bidfood, one of the UK’s largest food wholesalers, said school caterers face ‘difficult decisions’ as ‘all of the inputs into the food supply chain’ have increased over the past...
ANDREW Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, bluntly spelt out to MPs that the world faces an ‘apocalyptic’ food crisis that will have a devastating impact on the world’s poor and for the working class in Britain. Bailey was appearing before the Treasury select committee on Monday to be...
A GROUP of economists issued an open letter yesterday warning that Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s planned financial deregulation bill will lead to an economic crisis which will dwarf the crash of 2008. The letter, signed by 58 economists including former Tory-LibDem Coalition minister Vince Cable and former Greek finance minister...
PROTESTERS demonstrated outside the Storting building, which is the seat of the parliament of Norway, in the capital Oslo on May 14, 2022, to mark the 74th anniversary of the Nakba or ‘Catastrophe’, and pay homage to slain Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh who was fatally shot by Israeli...
THE TORY rush towards creating a police state controlled directly by the government has even got the chief constables and Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) up in arms and accusing Home Secretary Priti Patel of a ‘power grab’. The Guardian newspaper yesterday revealed that ‘an extraordinary row has broken out...
LABOUR is tomorrow demanding a vote in the House of Commons to introduce a windfall tax on oil and gas companies, with former leader Ed Miliband saying yesterday that it is ‘obscene’ that the Tory government has so far refused to bring in the policy. Ministers have previously dismissed the...
OVER 15,000 workers and youth demonstrated in London on Saturday to mark the 74th anniversary of Nakba Day, marching from BBC Broadcasting House near Oxford Circus to a rally at Downing Street. The march was led by scores of Palestinians, mostly children, holding keys, representing the hundreds of thousands of...
SWEDEN AND FINLAND are expected to apply for NATO membership on May 17th, and no doubt they will be welcomed with ‘open arms’ since Finland is on Russia’s doorstep, with Leningrad (now St Petersburg) – which withstood and defeated the great siege by the Nazis and drove them back...
229 Arab and international human rights organisations and networks have strongly condemned the assassination of the Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, after she was shot dead by an Israeli sniper, who put a bullet into her head. The fact that Israeli soldiers carried out this murder of the American-Palestinian...
A PALESTINIAN journalist who was with Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on the day when she was shot dead by Israeli state forces has recounted how the crime was committed, describing the shooting as a ‘deliberate attempt’ to kill the journalists. Shatha Hanaysha, an eyewitness to the shootings, described...
THE GOVERNENT wants to sack 91,000 civil service jobs to save money, the UK’s top civil servant says. The aim is to return to 2016 staffing levels within three years, Cabinet Secretary Simon Case said in a letter to civil servants. At an away-day in Stoke-on-Trent on Thursday, the prime minister...