Solidarity 031, 29 May 2003

By "Postal Worker" Postal workers have sent a clear message on "partnership" by booting the current Deputy General Secretary of the CWU out of office. Former London Divisional Rep Dave Ward beat Blairite John Keggie by 2,600 votes. The Keggie result is the latest warning to bureaucrats everywhere of the price of associating oneself with New Labour. Keggie's one-time militant image has been discredited by years of sell-out deals with Royal Mail management. But, whilst he is a better sort of bureaucrat than Keggie, Ward is still capable of negotiating agreements that do not meet the aspirations...

By Liam Conway Charles Clarke stumbles from one cock-up to another. But, clearly, the Government has no plans to take the funding crisis seriously, otherwise it wouldn’t have set up a committee led by Two Jags Prescott to investigate what happened to the £500 million Clarke says has been siphoned off from schools’ budgets. Recent history tells us that this government is adept at sleight of hand when it comes to public sector funding. Schools have been victims of this “now you see it, now you don’t” approach, on more than one occasion. A few years back Blunkett made a big show in the Commons of...

Let him stay! By Colin Foster Abbas Amini has sewed up his mouth and eyes and gone on hunger strike because he wants "a square foot of earth to live on... in peace". Tony Blair's government wants to deport him to Iran. The courts decided early in May that Abbas should stay here. Instead of accepting that decision, taken after two years' argument and delays, the Government is appealing against it. It was the Government's move to try to slam the door shut on him again, just as it seemed to open, that made Abbas start his protest, modelled on similar action by asylum-seekers in Australia last...