National News
CWU takes mail demo to Cameron
HUNDREDS of Royal Mail workers, members of several trade unions, students and local resident assembled in Witney, in Oxfordshire, the constituency of Prime Minister David Cameron, last Sunday to protest at plans to sell off the Royal Mail
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Unite to oppose job cuts at Hull city council
THE GIANT union Unite last week declared its intention to oppose compulsory job cuts as a result of Hull city council’s decision to make 1,400 redundancies.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
MPs defend threatened quangos
THE HOUSE of Commons Public Administration Committee last week described Government plans to abolish nearly 200 quangos, following a stinging parliamentary report which branded the proposals as “botched”.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
All London firefighters face the sack!
THE TORY-controlled London Fire Authority is to meet this Thursday at an emergency meeting to vote to sack all 5,500 London firefighters and force them to re-apply for their jobs on new terms that will radically change shift patterns.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Unions fight Birmingham Council pay cuts
THREE MAJOR unions, Unite, GMB and Ucatt, are locked in a bitter battle with Birmingham City Council over changes to the wages structure that will see refuse collectors losing up to £4,000 a year.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Newsquest journalists strike
MEMBERS of the National Union of Journalists employed by Newsquest at Southampton, Brighton and Darlington have been on strike last week a battle to save jobs and defend local journalism.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Clarke asked to clarify bribery laws
BRITISH capitalists are lobbying Justice Minister Ken Clarke to protect British firms from new anti-bribery laws as his own record of accepting freebies came under the spotlight.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
The real face of the Liberal Democrats
REVIEW
The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism Edited by Paul Marshall and David Laws. London: Profile Books, 2004, xi, 302pp. ISBN 978-1-86197-797-7 originally published at £8.99.
by Robert Laurie
IT IS perhaps unfortunate that this book was not reviewed by The New Worker when it first appeared in September 2004, which in political terms is two general elections and two Liberal Democrat leaders ago.
Had the contents of the book been better known fewer people might have been taken in by claims (promoted by The Guardian and others on the “left” who ought to have known better) that the Liberal Democrats were a safe radical alternative for Labour voters disillusioned by the right-wing policies of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Instead the contents of book reveal that the frequently repeated charges made about an alleged “betrayal” by the Liberal Democrats for entering into the coalition with the Tories are nothing of the sort. It unashamedly shows them to be perfect bedfellows for the Tory Party.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Remembering Salman Taseer
by a New Worker correspondent
NCP leader Andy Brooks and other London comrades joined mourners in London on Monday for a last salute to Salman Taseer, the Punjabi governor killed last week by a religious fanatic.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
International News
What are we going to do with Israel?
by Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
ISRAEL’S arrogance and lawlessness are growing by the day, with its illegal policies now being openly branded as such by the United Nations, as Tel Aviv continues its illegal practice of building colonies on lands it does not possess under international law.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
UN versus colonialism: a third decade
by Victor Carriba
THE UNITED Nations has declared this the Third International Decade for the Elimination of Colonialism, imposed by the persistent condition of colonialism in 16 so-called non-autonomous territories, and particularly the case of Puerto Rico.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Spanish union to continue pensions fight
Xinhua news agency
THE LEADER of Spain’s largest union, the Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), pledged his union to do everything possible to defend the public pensions system.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Features
Why did China’s economic stimulus succeed?
by Theo Russell
IN NOVEMBER 2008 the Chinese government announced a two-year economic stimulus package of four trillion yuan (£382 billion) to counteract the effects of the biggest global recession in 80 years.
Unlike similar efforts in Europe and the United States, China’s stimulus proved to be a spectacular success, and the recession hardly affected China at all. GDP growth was maintained at 10 per cent per year in 2007-2009, generating over one trillion dollars, even though exports, the engine of China’s economic success for the last three decades, fell by over $120 billion as Western demand slumped.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]