Solidarity 153, 12 June 2009

On Monday 1 June, the first day back after half-term, hundreds of students at Parkview School in Barrow-in-Furness walked out of their school hall to stage a protest on the school sports fields. The head teacher, who had previously licensed students expressing opposition to the school being closed to make way for an Academy, told the Year 7 to 10 students in assembly that the protest must not go ahead. But, as year 10 student Megan Rose said, “They tried to talk us down to stop us from protesting. If we didn’t come out it would have shown we had lost, but we are going to win”. Phil Solloway...

On 6-7 June members of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty were on the streets of south east London campaigning for our candidate in the next general election. Jill Mountford will be standing against New Labour’s Harriet Harman in Camberwell and Peckham. Comrades and supporters ran stalls, leafleted, sold our paper, and canvassed the area around Camberwell. Like many inner London neighbourhoods, Camberwell has some well-off residents, but the big majority are working class. Canvassing and discussing on street corners is a very useful, interesting experience. Many people walk past without paying...

The 2009 Alliance for Workers’ Liberty conference (30-31 May) took place as we see the further development of the political crisis following on from the economic crisis of capitalism. Our debates mapped out the tasks we face in the changed political situation and how we need to improve our ability to intervene. Sean Matgamna opened the conference: “We are in process of shaping up the AWL to face the biggest crisis since 1930s, a crisis that has shattered mystique of capitalism in the same way that idea of socialism seemed to have been discredited by the collapse of Stalinism in the early 90s....

Joe Flynn reviews Journal for Plague Lovers by the Manic Street Preachers. The Manics’ new album has been hyped in the press as a return to their 1994 peak. All the lyrics are taken from notes left by Richey Edwards, a former band member who disappeared in February 1995. Since then the Manics have gone from relative obscurity as dark iconoclasts, to mainstream success as dad-rockers with occasional moments of weird, sub-Stalinite political rhetoric. Edwards never contributed musically to the Manics. He was their self-styled “Minister of Propaganda” back in the days when the band had the absurd...

Another look at The Wire, now being shown on BBC 2 Wading through the superlatives that are lavished on The Wire, the five-season HBO drama exploring the social politics of Baltimore, Maryland, and the police department's Sisyphean attempts to deal with the city's drug trade and the near-uncontrollable crime it generates, can be an exhausting business. It's been variously described as "Shakespearean", "Dickensian", and indeed "the greatest television programme ever made." Its depictions of working-class life in Baltimore (which, when written about, invariably have the words "grittily realistic...

Wednesday 3rd June Spent day talking to colleagues about strike. Depressing start. Some don't support it for various reasons: can’t afford to lose two days money; we will look greedy striking for a pay rise during the recession; RMT is unreasonable; some people feel we can't win. Chatted to someone about the recession. I said we didn’t cause it and shouldn’t suffer; we need a strong workers’ movement to protect jobs in all industries and our strike will keep the movement strong. He said, ‘it makes a certain kind of sense’, but wasn’t convinced, like he wanted to believe it but didn't quite...

The fascist BNP has won two Euro-MPs. Labour has hit a record low in the Euro-elections. New Labour is crumbling - to the advantage of the fascist BNP, of the right-wing and xenophobic UKIP, and of the Tories. The affiliated unions should call the Labour Party to order. John McDonnell, who ran as a left candidate against Gordon Brown for leader in 2007, has called for "a recall Labour party conference - one that is properly open to all our members, supporters and progressives - at which we can debate the policies, democratically agree a new way forward and motivate our supporters once again...