National News
Tories to expand grammar schools
EDUCATION Secretary Damian Hinds last week announced that existing grammar schools in England will be allowed and encouraged to expand. He said he would provide £50 million a year for the project.
It is still against the law, passed by Tony Blair in 1998, to build new grammar schools. In a green paper published in September 2016, the Government proposed lifting the ban on opening new grammar schools, opening new selective free schools, allowing existing comprehensive schools to become selective and allowing academy trusts to establish selective centres — such as grammar streams — within their trust.
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Neo Nazi jailed for race hate speech
JEREMY (Jez) Bedford Turner, a fascist and racist well known for his association with the British National Party, the National Front and other racist and fascist movements was last week jailed for a year for a hate speech he made in July 2015 in Whitehall, in which he called for his “soldiers” to liberate England from “Jewish control” in a speech outside Downing Street and blamed Jews for issues ranging from both World Wars to Jack the Ripper.
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Death by 1,000 cuts
NHS ENGLAND last week announced that it S is looking to save £100; million a year on the prescribing of medications to treat ‘minor ailments’.
Funding changes mean GPs will no longer be allowed to prescribe medications to treat some minor ailments and has published guidance to free up to almost £100 million for frontline care each year by curbing prescriptions for ‘over the counter’ medicines.
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Support the USDAW Dagenham Tesco strike
WORKERS at the Tesco Dagenham distribution site in East London took strike action over pay from 10pm on Thursday 17th May. Following over a year of negotiations between Tesco and the retail and distribution workers’ union USDAW, bosses have refused to improve their initial offer which was worth less than three per cent.
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Carillion bosses drove firm off a cliff
THE BOARD of directors at the construction company, Carillion, presided over a “rotten corporate culture” and were culpable for its “costly collapse”, according to two
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Asylum seeker children denied school dinners
THE GOVERNMENT is being urged to review a policy that campaigners say bars children of virtually destitute families from receiving free school meals because of their parents’ immigration status.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Non Ban
FRACKING, the extraction of oil and gas from rocks deep underground by subjecting them to high powered hydraulic pressure, is said to increase earthquake risk and pollution from leaks. It is therefore unpopular with those living near potential fracking sites. The Scottish Nationalist government claims to have banned the practice, but now the SNP claim there was no such ban.
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Non Crisis
On Tuesday the Scottish Parliament voted by 93 to 30 to oppose the European Union Withdrawal Bill. The SNP were joined by Labour, the Lib-Dems and the Greens. The SNP claim this will create a major constitutional crisis because the Westminster Government will not like it. But the vote will have about as much impact as those motions MSP like to table which congratulate their local bowling club on winning the over 70s county championship
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A Tribute to Neil Harris
by New Worker correspondent
COMRADES and friends gathered at the Party Centre over the weekend to pay tribute to the life-long commitment of Neil Harris to the communist cause. Neil passed away in March after a long battle against cancer. He was 59.
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Remembering the Soviet victory against the Nazis
by New Worker correspondent
MILLIONS of Russians took to the streets last week to celebrate Victory Day and the surrender of Nazi Germany on 9th May 1945. A massive military parade through Red Square in Moscow paid tribute to the millions of Soviet soldiers and citizens who died in the struggle to defeat the Nazis in the Second World War while other commemorations took place throughout the Russian Federation and much of the former Soviet Union.
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International News
Catalonia elects pro-independence president
Sputnik
ON MONDAY, the Catalan Parliament elected Quim Torra, an MP from the Junts per Catalunya party, as president of the autonomous Spanish region.
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New offer to avert civil service strike in Zimbabwe
Xinhua
THE Zimbabwe government on Monday increased its pay offer to civil servants from 10 to 15 per cent as part of efforts to improve the welfare and working conditions of its workers.
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LGBTI Gala Day in Cuba
Radio Havana Cuba
THE 11th Cuban Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia was marked in Havana
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Features
It’s 1938 again
Sputnik
IT’S 1938 ALL over again.” “X, Y, Z, (insert name of latest Official Bad Guy) is the New Hitler” “Appeasement won’t work — we have to take action!”
Sounds familiar? These phrases have been NeoCon mantras for nearly 20 years now. The great irony is that what they’re saying is true. We are at a ‘1938 moment’, Appeasement won’t work. We do need to take action. Against the NeoCons themselves.
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USA: The real rogue state
Guardian Australian communist weekly
IN 1973, the feudal ruler of Afghanistan, King Mohammed Zahir, was ousted in a palace coup and replaced by his cousin Mohammed Daoud who proclaimed himself President with the title of Khan. Only in April 1978 were the revolutionary forces of Afghanistan finally able to overthrow Daoud’s repressive feudal regime in the Saur Revolution led by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA).
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The Soviet Union’s unique Moon probe mission.
Pravda.ru
THE LUNA-21 space probe with the Lunokhod-2 rover performed a soft landing on the surface of the Moon 45 years ago in January 1973.
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Top Marxism expert has a crush on China
Xinhua
WEARING a white T-shirt printed with the head of Karl Marx, Australian professor Roland Boer is easy to spot in a crowd. His students say this is his typical and favourite look.
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