Solidarity 432, 8 March 2017

Letters: All risks and nuclear risks

The debate in Solidarity on nuclear power is in danger of missing three points. The first is that all forms of energy production carry risks; the second is that some risks are more visible than others; the third is that some risks are exaggerated while others are ignored or minimised. Laker and Zubrowski ( Solidarity 431) warn that the left should not support nuclear power because of “its radioactive byproduct, unique [but unspecified] risk” and contribution to carbon emissions. Nuclear’s carbon emissions (due to mining, its use of concrete and steel) are essentially one-off and minimal: they...

Puddle-drinkers and a crossword puzzle

Attacks on Scottish nationalism have been coming thick and fast recently, bringing the puddle-drinkers (self-righteous Scottish nationalists) out in force. It began with Sadiq Khan’s speech to the Scottish Labour Party conference: “There’s no difference between those who try to divide us on the basis of whether we’re English or Scottish and those who try to divide us on the basis of our background, race or religion.” The statement had been preceded by references to “Brexit, the election of President Trump in the United States and the rise of right-wing populist and narrow nationalist parties...

Government starts student loan sell-off

The government has begun the sale of the assets of the Student Loans Company. It claims this will save public money without making graduates pay back more, and without changing their terms and conditions. This seems unlikely. The sale of the £4 billion of loans which were first eligible for repayment in 2002-6, is planned as the start of a process which will sell off more. A similar plan was abandoned in 2014 by Vince Cable, claiming that it would not achieve its stated aim of reducing government debt. Whilst this claim was true, it seems likely this was also in response to widescale protests...

Protests hit new Trump ban

Demonstrators in London will denounce US president Donald Trump’s new travel ban on people from six Muslim-majority countries at a protest on 18 March (noon from Portland Place, London), already planned to mark UN anti-racism day. Anti-Trump protests continue in the USA. A listing for New York City shows 11 of them due between 7 March and 22 April, though it seems this more carefully-drafted new ban (7 March) has not yet evoked the frantic rush of new protests which the 27 January version did. The new ban has no more valid “security” rationale than the first one. It serves only to stigmatise...

Fighting school cuts in Lewisham

On Wednesday 1 March over 100 people attended a meeting to defend Forest Hill School called by Lewisham National Union of Teachers (NUT). Forest Hill has discovered an £800,000 hole in its budget. The council is insisting on a restructure with the aim of losing £1.3 million off the wage budget. NUT members voted by 97% for strikes to stop compulsory redundancies and any increase to workload. The meeting displayed resolute opposition to the cuts and an eagerness to act. The message is clear — the community, the children and the staff are not responsible for this deficit, and we are unwilling to...

Civilians caught in Mosul crossfire

The Iraqi Government has been attempting to recapture Mosul since October last year. By the start of March 206,000 people had been displaced from Mosul, but 5,000 Daesh fighters remain. Many camps set up by aid agencies are almost full and will be unable to cope with higher numbers. 650,000 civilians are thought to remain in the city. Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has ordered his fighters to “wreak havoc” in Mosul as a prelude to a Daesh “victory”. Mosul is a diverse city with a Sunni majority, so the recapture by the Shia-dominated Iraqi state will have to be heavily monitored. After the...

Underground tomb found at Irish “mother and baby” home

A Commission appointed by the Irish government to look into the mass burial of infants at a former “mother and baby” home has confirmed “significant quantities of human remains” have been found in the grounds of the home. The Commission was appointed in 2015 after historian Catherine Corless found death certificates for babies born at a home in Tuam, County Galway, but no burial records. The commission will look at how these babies died, whether they can be identified, and how dead bodies were disposed of, at up to 70 other similar homes. The statement from the Mother and Baby Homes Commission...

Grim picture in French elections

On the website of the French daily Le Monde, Matthieu Goar writes: “If the MPs [of the main right-wing party, LR, The Republicans], Sarkozy [right-wing president 2007-2012], Juppé [prime minister 1995-7, and candidate to be LR nominee for president] and the others give the impression that they are ‘killing off’ Fillon by replacing him, the risk of some of Fillon’s voters going off to the National Front is not negligible. “At the Place du Trocadéro [in Paris, where Fillon held a defiant rally] I talked with many people who said that they would vote for [National Front presidential candidate...

The paradox of February

Continuing a series of extracts from Leon Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution. On 2 March 1917 a Provisional Government is formed; it has the support of the Petrograd soviet. Trotsky explains why the February revolution ended with a transfer of power to the liberal bourgeoisie. Read the rest of the series If you look only backward to past ages, the transfer of power to the bourgeoisie seems sufficiently regular: in all past revolutions who fought on the barricades were workers, apprentices, in part students, and the soldiers came over to their aside. But afterwards the solid...

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