Monthly Archives: August 2023
THE EIS (Educational Institute of Scotland) has warned that the increasing use of short-term contracts in Scottish schools is driving many newly qualified teachers out of the profession. In her letter to Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf, EIS general secretary Angela Bradley wrote about the ‘urgent matter of precarity of...
THE TORIES stepped up their onslaught on the NHS yesterday with the announcement of the scrapping of the requirement for patients with suspected cancer to have a first appointment with a specialist NHS consultant within two weeks of referral. In fact, the Tories are scrapping two-thirds of NHS cancer waiting...
THE UNION of Workers’ Trade Unions of Niger (USTN) has condemned the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the West African Monetary and Economic Union (UEMOA) for their sanctions and called for lifting them. ‘We strongly condemn the tough sanctions imposed by ECOWAS and UEMOA on Niger and...
Thousands of junior doctors are manning picket lines outside hospitals around the country again today as they continue their four days of strike action which began last Friday at 7am and concludes at 7am tomorrow. Speaking at the University College Hospital picket line on the busy Euston Road in central...
LAST week, the Tories’ strike-breaking agency worker regulations were thrown out after the High Court ruled they were unlawful. This judgement quashed an appeal by the government against a ruling by the High Court last month that the regulations were unlawful because the then Tory secretary of State for Business...
THE COLLAPSE of the popular discount high street retailer Wilko, with 12,500 of its workers facing being thrown out of a job, has thrown a spotlight on the precarious position of thousands of UK companies and the jobs of hundreds of thousands of workers. How did a company offering a...
On the picket line at St Thomas’ Hospital by Westminster Bridge in Central London, Ada Zembrzycka, a junior doctor and anaesthetic trainee, told News Line: ‘We are disappointed that we have to be here, but with an offer of 6% plus £1,250 we feel disrespected. ‘The government is not acting...
OVER 1,000 striking junior doctors rallied in Whitehall outside Downing Street on Friday afternoon, at the beginning of another four-day strike to defend the NHS against the Tory government’s privatisation drive. Co-chair of the British Medical Association Junior Doctors Committee, Dr Robert Laurenson, told the rally: ‘We’ve been 15 days...
A FIFTH round of strike action by junior doctors in England begins this morning, from 7am today until 7am on Tuesday 15 August. There will be BMA picket lines outside hospitals around the country this morning and at 4pm today the doctors’ union is holding a rally in Whitehall outside...
Western countries’ statements about providing security guarantees to Ukraine are empty, groundless excuses, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday. ‘Security guarantees presuppose the words “guarantees” and “security” and, overall, a range of certain characteristics as well, but these are missing here.
‘No one here can even say anything...
TODAY junior doctors launch four days of strike action throughout the NHS in England over the demand for a 35% pay increase to make up for the 26.2% cut in real terms pay that they have suffered under Tory wage freezes stretching back 14 years. Hospital consultants will be taking...
‘ST MUNGO’S should hang its head in shame,’ said Unite ahead of today’s solidarity midday rally outside the homelessness charity’s London HQ in St Thomas More Square, Tower Hill, London, E1W 1YW. ‘St Mungo’s must focus on solving the strike rather than wasting money on strike breaking – it won’t work,’...
ON AUGUST 3rd, the US military announced a plan to deploy armed troops on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, continuing the unilateral measures to stoke instability in the Persian Gulf. The latest provocation was reported by Western media outlets, citing four anonymous US officials, who said the final decision...
The Daily Telegraph has in recent months published a number of articles that have questioned not just the continued existence of the Tory government but called into question the future of the old bourgeois political system. The latest article by Sherelle Jacobs appeared this week under the headline ‘Britain isn’t...
THE TORIES threatened refugees who refuse to board the Bibby Stockholm ‘death-trap barge’ with destitution yesterday, while Home Secretary Suella Braverman described their legal representatives, as ‘crooked lawyers’. The first group of 15 people boarded the vessel on Monday, but 20 refused. If they had not moved on to the accommodation...
THE ISRAELI District Court’s decision not to grant the seriously ill freedom fighter Walid Daqqa – who has already served 37 years behind bars for his resistance to the Israeli occupation – an early release from prison due to his deteriorating health condition is tantamount to a death sentence,...
DURING a public on-line question and answer session on Monday, the Bank of England’s chief economist Huw Pill warned that higher food prices ‘may be here to stay’ and that a return to cheaper food is ‘something we may not be seeing for a while yet, if in the...
RUSSIA has the capability to assist with the economic development of Africa and could be a superior replacement to Western countries that are currently profiting from African resources, says an analyst. In an interview with Press TV, Mike Harris, a US-based journalist and political analyst, said Russia has an edge...
THE TORIES kicked off their ‘stop the boats week’ yesterday with the announcement that the first 50 asylum seekers will be forced onto the Bibby Stockholm barge moored off Portland Port in Dorset, with the promise that by the end of the week this floating prison barge will accommodate...
REFUGEE charity Care4Calais reported yesterday that it had managed to stop 20 asylum seekers from being forced aboard the Bibby Stockholm ‘deathtrap barge’ anchored off Portland in Dorset . Care4Calais Chief executive Steve Smith said: ‘None of the asylum seekers we are supporting have gone to the Bibby Stockholm today...
A LABOUR government would continue with the reactionary Tory policy of incarcerating refugees aboard barges moored offshore, according to shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock yesterday. More than 50 human rights organisations and campaign groups, including the Refugee Council, Refugee Action, and Asylum Matters have called the government’s refugee plans ‘cruel...
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in the Western Cape notes recent developments affecting the Taxi Industry in Cape Town and the statement of SANTACO Western Cape resolving that no taxis will be operating with immediate effect across the Western Cape until Wednesday. SANTACO is claiming that this...
‘Buy now, pay later’ (BNPL) deals, along with other personal loan arrangements, are being aggressively pushed out for NHS patients as part of the drive to push privatisation throughout the health service. These are designed to get people to take out loans to cover the cost of basic healthcare with...
THE Chilean College of Teachers began a 48-hour strike on Wednesday to demand a response to the requests submitted to the administration of President Gabriel Boric. The Chilean teachers presented an 8-point petition to the Education Ministry.
‘So far, however, the authorities have not responded to these demands,’ said Carlos Diaz,...
THE TORIES are planning to knife the NHS through a massive expansion of the private health sector. The Labour turncoats are meanwhile critical of them for not proceeding with the project with the necessary urgency and speed, arguing that Labour would be much quicker with NHS privatisation. PM Sunak is now...
THE TORY goverment is now rushing to privatise the NHS, by using all means that are available for the task including the use of the private sector to ‘tackle the NHS backlog in England’. Ministers say they want to unlock spare capacity to get more people the treatment and operations...
THE Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), at its meeting ending on 2nd August 2023, voted by a majority of 6-3 to increase the Bank Rate by 0.25 percentage points, to 5.25%. Two members preferred to increase the Bank Rate by 0.5 percentage points, to 5.5%, and one member...
YESTERDAY the Bank of England hiked interest rates up to 5.25%, the 14th time in a row that rates have been increased as the Bank pushes on in its attempt to push down inflation by driving up the costs of goods, services, rents and mortgages for workers and the...
A RAID by Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Nablus has injured dozens of Palestinians, as occupation forces shot live fire and tear gas at crowds during their latest act of aggression in the occupied Palestinian territories. According to eyewitnesses cited by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA,...
‘PRIOR to the Grenfell Tower fire, many concerns were being raised by many groups, including the Fire Brigades Union, about fires in high-rise buildings. Those concerns were largely ignored and it saw the loss of 72 innocent lives.’ Ben Selby, Deputy General Secretary of the FBU, was yesterday condemning the...
IN THE wake of recent revelations, it appears that agents from Britain’s intelligence community might finally be held accountable for their previously lesser-known involvement in the CIA’s globally extended program of torture. As the ramifications of this controversial program unfold, the gaze of international accountability now shifts to the operatives...
FORMER US President Donald Trump has been charged with illegal plotting to overturn his 2020 election defeat. He is accused of four counts including conspiracy to defraud the US, tampering with a witness and conspiracy against the rights of citizens. The indictment caps an inquiry into events surrounding the 6...
THE OUSTING of Niger president Mohamed Bazoum by the military has sent shock waves across the imperialist world, with France and the United States joining with their allies in imposing crippling sanctions on the West African country and demanding a return to ‘democratic rule’. France, the former colonial power in...
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has condemned the Israeli occupation regime as the main source of instability in West Asia, and warned that the region has not, and will not, be indifferent to its actions. Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks in a joint press conference with his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad...
TEN weeks into their indefinite strike for a 10% pay increase, over 200 St Mungo’s homelessness charity workers and their supporters held a festival in Thomas More Square, near Tower Hill in the City of London yesterday. Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn told the rally: ‘I was here on...
THE British state is subsidising the UK arms industry to the tune of billions of pounds to the benefit of its wealthy private owners and shareholders, a new report by the ‘Common-wealth’ think tank has confirmed. The executive summary of the report ‘The Asset Manage Arsenal: Who Owns the UK...
At the weekend, bosses at the Bank of England announced that they had drafted in the ex-chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank (Fed), Ben Bernanke, to take charge of a review into the ‘forecasting errors’ that have led to the Bank consistently making wild underestimations of the financial...
THE TORIES are ‘blithely sailing towards an iceberg’ with their plans for the NHS, the President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), Dr Adrian Boyle, warned yesterday. Dr Boyle warned that the plans proposed by NHS England and the Tory government at the weekend will provide less than...