A New Hope in Germany

It was a good night for the left but a bad night for social democracy in Germany.
In particular it was a good night for Die Linke (The Left) taking 11.9% of the vote and electing 76 MPs (including it seems Christine Buchholz and Andrej Hunko, previously mentioned on this site)
The regional state elections earlier [...]

Victory for strike at Tower Hamlets College

Teaching staff at Tower Hamlets College voted to go back to work on Thursday after winning victory in their month long indefinite strike.
They seem to have completely rolled back the attack and the college principal has now promised there will be no compulsary redundancies.
As previously reported here over the summer the college had announced [...]

Germany’s election and Die Linke on the Web

Ahead of Germany’s elections tomorrow a survey of articles available on the web on the rise of Die Linke (The Left) seems to be in order.
The British media is not known for its interest in the politics of other countries, other than the United States.
The lack of coverage of elections in Germany (Europe’s largest economy [...]

On the Dole, 21st century style

Unemployment is rising to levels not seen for more than a decade, and heading for the level of the early eighties.
The fight for work, and against the impoverishment, both material and mental, that comes in its wake, is one that the left has to take up if it is to be worthy of the name.
Though [...]

Paul Mason on the Crisis

Despite the economic crisis neo-liberalism seems to be winding up for asecond wind.
Paul Mason has an intersting article on the BBC website about this phenomenon.
I’ve been going through the rushes we shot in New York on the day Lehman collapsed, in advance of tonight’s programme – a special edition of Newsnight exploring what’s changed as [...]

“Who ever said the world was fair. It isn’t fair.”

“Who ever said the world was fair. It isn’t fair”
Who says Stuart Fraser of the Corporation of London in defence of the contiued payment of big bounses in tonight edition of Panorama.
It is an excellent expose of the Great Bank Roberry, of how the taxpayer spen t billions on bailing out th ebanks, and how [...]

Who’d have thunk it? Another round of neo-liberalism

The crisis is an opportunity. But for who?
Increasingly it is starting to seem that the recession, in this country at least, is going to herald yet another round of neo-liberal “reform” of the economy.
All the parties are now fessing up to the fact that the next general election is going to followed by massive public [...]

You couldn’t make it up (1)

A story from the “you couldn’t make it up” section.
Many of you may have heard about London Midland Railways having to cancel their services on Sunday because not enough drivers volunteered to do the Sunday shift
The reason? Staff used to get double time on a Sunday. And now they don’t. So no one wanted to [...]

Battle to lead Unite

Respect member Jerry Hicks is one of those who is in the running for the next General Secretary of the Unite trade union, the biggest in the country with some 2 milion members.
The union will be formed by a merger of the union Amicus and the TGWU and an election will be held for a [...]

Indefinite Strike at Tower Hamlets College

Teaching staff at Tower Hamlets College have gone on all-out indefinite strike against 13 compulsory redundancies in the English as a Second Language Department.
This will also mean the cutting of the number of places on ESOL courses from 3,000 to 2,000. Tower Hamlets has got one of the highest proportions of speakers [...]