Tag: scotland

HOSPITAL consultants yesterday asserted their determination to defend patient care and oppose NHS privatisation. At the BMA Consultants Conference motion 5,...

On the eve of the new Tory Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith’s announcement of plans to drive the unemployed and sick off...

The draft coalition agreement reached by the Tories and the Liberal Democrats published on Wednesday makes clear their number one priority is to make...

A TORY-LIB DEM savage cuts coalition government was being assembled last night, after coalition talks between the Labour Party and the Lib Dems broke...

Euro-zone leaders have taken the desperate measure of risking all on one throw of the dice, after advancing an almost $1 trillion package...

BRITAIN remained without a government yesterday, as the Liberal Democrats prepared to dump their proportional representation policy in order to strike a dirty coalition...

SATs tests are being used as a ‘big stick’ to beat state schools with, says the president of the National Association of Head Teachers...

‘We always said that Blair had been killed by a policeman. I feel that we’ve really been vindicated,’ Celia Stubbs, the partner of Blair...

THE Unite union is warning that workers must not be expected to meet the costs of the disruption brought by the erupting Icelandic...

Head teachers have voted overwhelmingly to boycott SATs tests, which unions condemned as ‘focusing on failure’. Teaching unions are also deeply opposed to the league...

THE government has rejected demands for new laws against ‘extraordinary rendition’: the practice of kidnapping and flying detainees to secret sites around the world,...

UP to a quarter of a million civil and public servants from across the UK will be taking part in a one day strike...

OVER a quarter of a million civil servants will walk out at the start of a 48-hour national strike today against the government’s decision...

‘YOU cannot make savage funding cuts without serious consequences, despite Lord Mandelson’s insulting efforts to sell the cuts as an opportunity,’ said UCU general...

IN ‘going-broke Britain’ the number of people becoming insolvent in England and Wales in 2009 was 134,142, according to official data from the Insolvency...

Angry Cadbury workers lobbied MPs on Tuesday, entering parliament at precisely 1pm, the exact time that Cadbury shareholders voted in favour of a ‘highly-leveraged’...

RESEARCH by charity ‘Save the Children’ has found that between 2004 and 2008, an additional 260,000 children were pushed into severe poverty in the...

EARLIER this week Chancellor Alistair Darling promised the most draconian cuts in public spending for 20 years as a result of the Labour government’s...

GAS for industry and grit for the roads were being rationed yesterday as British industry began to shut down. Vauxhall, Ellesmere Port, Jaguar Land Rover,...

ISRAEL cancelled the visit of a military delegation to Britain last week after British authorities could not guarantee that the Israeli occupation army’s...

UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis has warned politicians against making ‘selfless’ public service workers pay the price for the economic slump. In his New Year...

The British Medical Association (BMA) has today unveiled a set of New Year’s resolutions for politicians to help them protect the future of the...

A POLL by the BMA and Doctors.net.uk shows that doctors are concerned about the role of private companies in the NHS. Eight out of...

CITY Minister Lord Myners yesterday said shareholders should take action to stop million pound bonuses after Royal Bank of Scotland directors threatened to resign...

AFTER the Abu Dhabi stockmarket experienced a record one-day fall of 8.3 per cent, and Dubai’s Financial Market Index fell 7.3 per cent yesterday,...

DUBAI’S ‘debt repayment’ postponement for six months has brought renewed havoc to European, Asian and North American stock markets. They have all been reminded that...

THE Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, has dropped a bombshell in a letter to the House of Commons Treasury Committee. He revealed...

THE working class saw the Tories, and the Scottish Tories of the SNP, off in Thursday’s by-election in Glasgow North East. On...

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has condemned the Trinity Mirror publishing group for announcing the closure of its final salary pension scheme – and...

THE Bank of England yesterday maintained its interest rate at 0.5 per cent and decided to step up its money printing programme to give...

The Unite union yesterday warned that up to 25,000 banking jobs are at risk with the government’s plan to sell off the profitable parts...

PRIME MINISTER Brown was fighting for his political life yesterday, as well as for a future for his right-wing ‘bankers’ government. Having saved the...

DELEGATES at the TUC Congress in Liverpool on Wednesday voted unanimously for Composite Motion 2: Temporary Agency Workers, to demand that agency workers have...

GORDON BROWN had a very cool reception at the TUC yesterday. The mood was set by the PCS delegation, which held up placards saying ‘No...

THE TUC delegates in Liverpool at the 2009 Congress on Monday voted unanimously to defend public services. Composite Motion C21 Public Services and the Economy...

Over two hundred postal workers from London, Edinburgh and Crewe lobbied the Unite head office in Holborn yesterday to demand Unite leaders Derek Simpson...

THE forty-year-old Libyan revolution is being celebrated with enthusiasm this week by the Libyan masses in Tripoli. The revolution, led by Colonel Gadaffi, put an...

THE Scottish Nationalist government has defended its decision to release Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi amid a mounting and frenzied counter-attack directed...

YESTERDAY the bourgeois media were demanding to know ‘exactly why this killer was freed’, calling Abdelbaset Ali al Megrahi a...

‘Any further increase in university fees will be about as popular as the poll tax,’ says University and College Union (UCU) general secretary Sally...

Postal workers were out on strike across London, Essex, Scotland and the West Midlands yesterday, the first of a number of days of strike...

Workers who have been occupying the Vestas turbine blade plant on the Isle of Wight for fourteen days over plans to cut 625 jobs...

The University and College Union (UCU) has warned universities and colleges to think very carefully before entering into partnerships with private firms. This is after...

Provocative actions by court officials have angered workers occupying the Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight. Vestas workers said it has made...

‘London Fire Authority are paying £12m over five years for what is in effect a strike-breaking force. ‘We are unequivocally opposed to it, it’s a...