Solidarity 148, 26 March 2009

Barnet council in north London receives a relatively low grant settlement from central government because it is a relatively prosperous borough. However, it has large pockets of deprivation. The current Tory council makes a lot of central government “unfairness” when it wants to justify its plans to cut services and to go in for extensive outsourcing (the “Future Shape” programme). But, at the same time, the council consistently neglects poorer areas. Overdue regeneration of the worst housing estates (formerly council, now run by an ALMO, Barnet Homes) are grinding to a halt in the credit...

Everyday now we hear news about thousands of job losses across industry. This is not because there’s no work to be done — you’ve only got to look around you at the state of housing estates, the understaffing of hospitals, the size of classes in schools — to see there’s a lot of work to be done; and yet still workers are losing their jobs. What should the unions be doing about this? Well you don’t save jobs by rolling over on issues like pay and conditions. You look weak, the employer thinks you are a pushover and they’ll come for you again. If they beat you on pay and conditions they’ll come...

According to the latest official Retail Price Index, on average prices are now falling. But a closer look at the figures shows that the working-class cost of living is still rising. Food prices went up 12.5% between February 2008 and February 2009. Eggs went up 11.2%, vegetables 18.6%, fruit 13%. Fares and other travel costs went up 10.2% (January-January), gas 33.1%, electricity 18%. The fall in the overall index comes from cheaper prices on clothing, car purchases, and “consumer durables” of all sorts, and from lower mortgage payments. Households renting accommodation still saw their rent...

Click to download pdf of Steve Cohen's book "That's funny, you don't look antisemitic" Steve Cohen, a revolutionary socialist for over 40 years, died on 8 March aged 63. Steve had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for over 15 years, but despite pain and limited mobility remained involved in political activity until a short time before his death. Dave Landau has written an obituary that gives a detailed appreciation of Steve’s life and politics. Unfortunately we cannot reprint it here for reasons of length but it is available on this website . It recounts Steve’s political history in the...

Ruth Cashman reports on the first international labour conference ever held in Iraq, which she attended in Erbil on 13-14 March. The conference, included hundreds of delegates from oil and gas, ports, electricity, construction, public sector, transport, communications, education, rail, health care, metal working, journalists, food workers and students. Delegations from the US, the UK, South Africa, Japan, Australia, and Iran were also there. At this conference three powerful unions, the Federation of Oil Unions in Iraq , the Electricity Association and the General Federation of Workers...

On the “Put People First” demonstration Workers’ Liberty is backing the “Internationalist, Anti-Capitalist, and Feminist” contingent sponsored by groups including Feminist Fightback and No Sweat ( www.workersliberty.org/28march09 ). Everywhere on the demonstration we will be arguing for it to be used to rally workers for battle against the bankers and the bosses responsible for the crisis and job cuts, rather than for vague appeals to people in general to plead with the G20 governments for gentler policies. We will also be arguing for workers’ unity in the crisis, across borders, and across...

If you tell a man that he’s going to be hanged in the morning, then, as someone once said, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. The British National Party is expected to make serious electoral gains in a number of different elections over the coming period. It will most likely win more council seats. It may win a seat in the European Parliament. It may gain representation in Parliament in the next General Election, a year or so from now. It already has a seat in the London Assembly. The serious left needs to sound the political alarm bells. One of the main reasons why this is happening is the...

We are probably in the first stages of the fourth international "great depression" in the history of capitalism. This is a longer version of this article than in the printed paper . The period between the early 1970s and the mid-1980s was never labelled a "great depression", but belongs with two other periods of economic disorder and recurrent recession: from the early 1870s to the mid 1890s, and from 1929 to World War 2. Some capitalist economic downturns have relatively little lasting social and political impact. Larger downturns are different. One trend among Marxist economists, the...

At this writing (January 2009), firms in all sectors of the U. S. economy are cutting their payrolls; unemployment and homelessness are soaring; and the working class is taking the biggest hit to living standards in several generations, raising deep doubts about the capacity of our capitalist society in the near term to ensure overall social reproduction. Similar trends are evident around the world, reflecting a heightened degree of interconnection and transnationalisation. Mountains of debt -- consumer, business, government, offshore -- continue to accumulate, and the fragility of the...