National News
Kowtowing to US imperialism
Sputnik
KEN Livingstone, the former London mayor and the honorary president of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign (VSC), has denounced the decision of the British government to support Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido. This, he said, reflects the country’s continuous policy of subservience to US foreign policy interests, whose ultimate goal is “regime change” in the beleaguered Latin American state.
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Cream cake capitalism
by New Worker
correspondent
UNITE the union has blamed government inaction over tackling “bandit capitalism” in the case of the collapse of the Patisserie Valerie chain, saying that this is an example of the government failing to learn the lessons of outsourcer Carillion’s collapse and urgently reform the regulatory system for the financial sector. In both cases, expensive highly qualified external accountants and auditors gave companies with mounting financial problems (and possible shady dealings) a clean bill of health
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More job losses at Tesco
by New Worker
correspondent
TESCO HAS announced it will close food counters in 90 of its stores as part of a wider cost-cutting plan that will affect 9,000 staff. Last weekend the Mail on Sunday reported that the supermarket could cut 15,000 jobs, and close some fresh food counters and bakeries. In an internal company email seen by the BBC, its chief operating office said plans were “still being finalised”. He also acknowledged that “any changes” would be hard for the people affected and said that more information would follow. The supermarket giant has cut over 10,000 jobs over the last four years.
Management refused to comment on the media claims but the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW),
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NHS at breaking point
by New Worker
correspondent
CRISIS LEVEL staffing has become the norm across the NHS according to UNISON, the major union for NHS employees. A survey of staff entitled Just Another Day was published last Friday. Based on 18,000 respondents, it examined attitudes and experiences for NHS staff across the country during one working day — the 24 hours of Tuesday 18th September 2018 — to paint a picture of how staff felt about the pressures they were under.
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Cabbie crisis
by New Worker
correspondent
EDINBURGH cab drivers are being squeezed on all sides. Last year, Edinburgh City Council passed a policy that will force all black cabs over 10 years old to be replaced by April 2020. Hundreds of taxi drivers will have to fork up around £60,000 or potentially be forced off the road
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More trouble at the Tower
by New Worker
correspondent
FURTHER STRIKE action is planned by some of the country’s most royal workers in defence of their pensions. Just before Christmas staff employed by Historic Royal Palaces took strike action, in protest at plans to close its defined benefits pension scheme to future accruals and move the 120 staff who are members of the scheme into a defined contribution scheme. This would result in members of the civil service union PCS receiving, in some cases, greatly reduced pensions.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Police Gazette
IT IS NOT every day that a member of Her Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council is arrested and even more rarely do they face a list of 14 charges. Such was the unhappy fate of the Rt Hon Alexander Elliott Anderson Salmond at Edinburgh’s Sheriff Court last week.
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Indy2 Plans
Former International Marxist Group (IMG) member, sometime neoliberal economist and former SNP MP George Kerevan has put forward a novel suggestion to ensure a second independence referendum. He said that Yes supporters could block the London underground at rush hour as part of a “phased escalation of civil disobedience” and break Treasury rules in a “strategy of tension”.
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Euro News
On Saturday BBC Scotland News reported that about 200 people met at a trendy liberal church in Edinburgh
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Freedom and Justice for Palestine
by New Worker
correspondent
LONDON’S HISTORIC Conway Hall was packed with hundreds of solidarity activists taking part in the Annual General Meeting of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).
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Never Again!
By New Worker correspondent
NEW Communist Party (NCP) leader Andy Brooks joined comrades, war veterans, diplomats and anti-fascists last week at the annual Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration, organised by the Soviet War Memorial Trust and Southwark Council
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An Indian Home from Home
by New Worker
correspondent
A NEW National Trust exhibition opens in London this week, shining a light on the rich social history of one of the city’s most fascinating community spaces: The India Club
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Cuban Independence Day in London
ny New Workercorrespondent
NEW Communist Party leader Andy Brooks joined diplomats, businessmen and solidarity workers at a celebration to mark Cuba’s National Day in London last week. Cuba’s Ambassador in London, Teresita Vicente Sotolongo, highlighted Cuba’s long relationship with Britain, which began with the brief occupation of Havana and other parts of the island during the Seven Years War with Spain in the 18th century.
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An evergreen Marxist digest from India REVIEW
by Robin McGregor
Revolutionary Democracy Vol XXIV, No 1, October 2018. £5.00 + £1.00p&p from NCP Lit: PO Box 73, London SW11 2PQ
Revolutionary Democracy, the twice-yearly Indian Marxist journal is catching up on its schedule and its latest issue is now on sale from the above address. Like Gaul, the journal is in three parts. first there are collections of articles on contemporary India, then statements and articles from various parties belonging to the International Conference of Marxist Leninist Parties and Organisations. finally there is the always interesting material from the Soviet archives, which editor Vijay Singh assiduously ferrets out
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International News
Sculptures in sand for the Palestinian cause
Xinhua
RANA Ramlawi, a 23-year-old Palestinian woman from the Gaza Strip, resorts to sand art to highlight the Palestinian cause and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In her sculptures, made out of sand and water, many messages are conveyed in support of the Palestinian cause
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Yellow Vests keep up the fight
by Pavel Jacomino Radio Havana Cuba
THE FRENCH Yellow Vests held their 11th consecutive weekly mobilisation on Saturday, although internal disagreements about strategies have emerged, mostly related to the participation in both the ‘great national debate’ and the European Parliament elections
Angela Davis and ‘indivisible justice’ for Palestine
by Minnie Bruce Pratt Workers World
IN RECENT months the struggle for the rights of the Palestinian people has seen an increase in Zionist attacks on Black activists who support the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement. The goal of BDS is to stop the Israeli state’s genocidal policies and actions towards Palestinians, including putting pressure on corporate entities to cease doing business with Israel
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China: a model of prosperous socialism
Xinhua
CHINA’S millenary history and the successful experience achieved in the last 40 years constitute a model for the world, Tang Haijun, researcher and counsellor from the International Department of the Communist Party of China, said in Havana this week.
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Features
France and Venezuela Spot the difference
by Neil Clark Sputnik
THE ‘YELLOW VESTS’ anti-government protests in France have received limited coverage in Western media and what coverage there has been has been quite hostile to the protestors.
In Venezuela though it’s a very different story. Here the street demonstrations are a major news event, despite the country being thousands of miles away. Furthermore, the coverage is very sympathetic to the protestors and extremely hostile to the government.
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The myth of Soviet backwardness
by Rob Gowland Australian Marxist Review
IT IS an axiom of anti-Communist propaganda that Socialism is not inventive, unlike capitalism. ‘Free enterprise’ and ‘individualism’ supposedly cause the creative juices to flow, whereas striving for the good of the mass of the people apparently fails to do this. It follows from this line of thinking, that the USA as the leading capitalist country has invented almost everything and the Soviet Union, as the leading socialist country, invented nothing worth mentioning.
That this was nonsense was clear to anyone who cared to look but it suited capitalism to keep Soviet inventions quiet. In fact, whenever Soviet spokespersons tried to set the record straight and report the achievements of Soviet inventors, their reports were held up to ridicule as manifestly absurd;it was common knowledge that the Commies couldn’t invent anything.
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