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The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

Lead story

Police bring brutality to Clapham vigil

by Yu Ning

PUBLIC OPINION is divided over how to react to a violent crackdown by police on a vigil for a murdered woman. Last Saturday evening a vigil was organised in a London park to pay tribute to Sarah Everard, who was kidnapped and murdered by a Metropolitan Police officer, and to call attention to violence against women. Footage showed that police officers forcibly pinned mourners to the ground, handcuffed and took them away amid cries of “shame on you” and “let them go” from onlookers.

Read the full story here >> Police bring brutality to Clapham vigil

Fire and Rehire

by New Worker correspondent

THE PHRASE “Fire and Rehire” has become depressingly common in recent months. According to research by the Trades Union Congress about a tenth of the British workforce have been told to reapply for their jobs on worse terms and conditions since the first lockdown started a year ago.

Read the full story here >> Fire and Rehire

The deadly cost of austerity in the Royal Borough of Grenfell

by Theo Russell

FORMER Labour MP for Kensington from 2017 to 2019 Emma Dent Coad, known locally as “the people’s MP”, was the star speaker at the online AGM of the Hammersmith, Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea Trades Council last week. There she spoke of the massive inequality in the borough and the many unanswered questions about Kensington and Chelsea council’s £50 million Grenfell Recovery Fund.

Read the full story here >> The deadly cost of austerity in the Royal Borough of Grenfell

Greece: The Pandemic and the Failing State

by our Balkan affairs correspondent

A YEAR previously, Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and members of his government were praising doctors, the “health heroes” as they called them, for their fight against the Coronavirus pandemic. The government had even urged the people to show their appreciation to the country’s healthcare workers by applauding them from their balconies.

Read the full story here >> Greece: The Pandemic and the Failing State

Editorial

Tories ahead

THE CONSERVATIVES are seven points ahead of Labour in the opinion polls that also say that some 88 per cent of the public think that the Government has done a good job getting the public vaccinated as soon as possible.

While Boris Johnson basks in the reflected glory of the NHS’s coronavirus vaccine roll-out the future looks bleak for Sir Keir Starmer and his diminishing band of supporters. The knives are already out amid speculation that Labour is going to get a hammering in the local and regional elections in two months’ time.

The Blairites backed Starmer to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn and drive the Corbynistas out of the party they tried to reform during Corbyn’s time at the top table. Now they’re having second thoughts.

Some are openly saying that Starmer is a hopeless campaigner who is clearly unelectable. Others are staying their hand -- waiting to see what actually happens in the May polls before making any move to trigger another Labour leadership contest. But who’s going to lead them?

Read the full story here >> Tories ahead