Solidarity 390, 20 January 2016

Turning Britain into an extended 1950s Czechoslovak collective farm tractor station forms no part whatsoever of the political project advocated by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. Yeah, I know, this shock revelation will sorely disappoint their detractors. But what is striking is that, ever since the two men took the leading positions in the Labour Party four months ago, serious measured analysis of what they actually stand for has been almost non-existent. That’s partly their own fault, of course. The Little Red Book stunt and the casual Christmas party quote from Enver Hoxha have made it...

On 14 January, NHS England admitted that the total of patients referred to hospitals but waiting for treatment could be as high as 3.5 million. On the latest complete figures, for November 2015, 834 people were waiting more than a year. That’s more than double the number in November 2014 and nearly four times as many as 2013. 157,000 people were kept waiting beyond the benchmark period in A&E in November, up from 117,644 in the same month in 2014. The Tories say they are not cutting the NHS budget. In fact, since the population is ageing and more initially-expensive new treatments are coming...

Anna, a student nurse at City University, spoke to Solidarity . Are there issues affecting student nurses other than the bursary cut? Yes, poverty. Most students cannot afford to pay for basic living costs, such as food and rent. So we have to look for other ways to support ourselves, such as taking paid bank shifts as care assistants. Short staffing on wards is a problem. We all feel much pressure and are taking on work above our capabilities. Having less newly qualified nurses in the future will compound the pressure. In order to give compassionate care, we need to be mindful of our own...

Following attacks in Paris and Beirut in November last year, along with the shooting down of a Russian passenger jet, Daesh has stepped up its deadly operations outside of the claimed borders of its “Caliphate” in Iraq and Syria. Reflecting tactics that have long been the preferred method of Al Qaeda, Daesh claimed responsibility for the bombing of the Sarinah shopping mall in Jakarta Indonesia on 14 January. The attack, which killed four and injured many others, took place near foreign embassies and the UN and hotels used by foreign tourists. Indonesia is not the most fertile recruiting...

Most of us mere mortals only have to deal with the Land Registry on the rare occasion we are buying or selling a house (and given current house prices we can dream on). But supposing you have a house and for whatever reason you needed to find who owns the land your house stands on, or the open land, wasteland or coppice at the back of your house? Easy (or rather, c’est facile). You go to the local Mayor’s office and he or she will get out a huge book of maps which show all the land ownership (its fancy name is a cadastre) in your local area. Even better — you won’t be charged for this, the...

Vishnu Parameshwaran is a BMA Junior Doctors' rep at Bart's Health Trust I have been a rep for a year now - I've always been interested in trade unions and workers' rights. Up to now, most of the work of the BMA has been on local issues - making sure that doctors get their contracts on time; monitoring the hours that doctors are working, and so on. We are doctors and our main concern is patients, and that is why we are taking this action today. The new contracts will lead to unsustainable staffing arrangements in the NHS - and that will hurt patients. We are taking action with a heavy heart...