Devolution – a serious threat across Britain
Why is it that those in the working class most in favour of the EU tend to also favour the break-up of Britain?
Features
Features
Steel: the backbone of industry
Steel is vital for manufacturing and infrastructure. Producing it is energy intensive, but closing blast furnaces without a realistic plan for future steel production undermines Britain’s self-reliance...
Free speech and discussion - crucial to Britain
Free speech is under threat – and in fighting for it workers can’t allow themselves to be sidelined by divisive laws and policies…
Flooding shouldn't have to be a disaster
Floods are an ever-present risk in Britain. While they’re never good news, their impact can be managed and lessened. But not if government continues to fail to act…
Capital, not computing, is the enemy of progress
After decades of developments in computing laboratories, artificial intelligence has broken through into the mainstream. Is this good news or bad?
Copper. The metal we can't do without
With the transition from traditional sources of energy to all-electric, Britain’s security of supply is in question as never before. And with it, the issue of national self-reliance…
Respect FE - deal with skill shortages
Turn on the news or read the newspaper and you hear “skills shortage”, and “shortage occupation list” for legal migration. But why is there a skills shortage and what is the national plan for addressing it?
Parasitic capitalism - who needs it?
Asset management companies live off the wealth created by others. They buy not to produce things of use, but to profit from squeezing the assets or selling them on…
The future has to be nuclear
Electricity is vital for modern life, whatever contribution from other renewable energy sources, nuclear power will continue to be an effective way to provide it for the foreseeable future…
Why the employers love rising immigration
All the bluster about illegal immigration – which continues unabated – is designed to obscure the government’s determination to raise migration levels even further…
HS2 - Sunak condemns Britain's rail to decline
Britain has to continue to modernise, and that means new infrastructure. That is expensive. But the alternative is to allow capitalism’s decline to take the working class with it…
Homeless in Manchester
Manchester is an example of a supposedly booming city where housing problems are acute…
Social care - too costly not to act
Can Britain afford not to transform social care? It’s up to workers everywhere to demand change and not be fobbed off with more delay…
The Grenfell Tower Fire - and accountability
The public inquiry set up soon after the Grenfell Tower Fire completed its hearings last November and is expected to publish its final report in 2024. There’s much to learn already…
End the long war in Ukraine!
The British government is clear: it wants the war in Ukraine to go on and on, and it will seek to sabotage anything and anyone that works for peace…
Nuclear power? Yes, please!
Reluctant to invest in infrastructure, successive governments have failed to keep in step with public support for nuclear – and failed, too, to provide the clean electricity that nuclear can deliver…
People need homes, not empty promises
Housing policy in Britain is in a mess. From missed house building targets through to exploitative land deals, mortgage inflation and homelessness, the basic needs of people have been neglected…
End the cycle: the crisis is one of capitalism
Freed from the EU, Britain’s economy can – and must – avoid the perils of globalism. But globalisation is not an aberration… it is the logical development of capitalism...
The resistible rise of the net zero dogma
The ruinously expensive rush to meet the net zero target of 2050 has never been agreed by the public, and the government and its Climate Change Committee are determined not to let the people Britain have a say…
Recruitment without retention won’t save the NHS
More places need to be created to train medical staff for the NHS, but the latest plan to address the shortages in the NHS workforce ignores one crucial question: how to retain staff in the face of low pay and poor conditions…
Muck and money
Britain’s regulators are supposed to provide safeguards for the public. Their record is woeful…
The pandemic inquiry should listen to workers
There is much to learn from the Covid-19 pandemic, but we should not look to the Hallett inquiry for the lessons. Official inquiries take ages, cost millions, and rarely come up with the goods…
Who should run London? [print version]
Are mayors the wise men who should lead today’s educated population? Or are they surplus to requirements? We need to dig deeper to find the real power in London, look at the role of the City, its financial sector…
Who should run London?
24 August 2023
The way London is run does not serve its people. Past improvements have given way to the dominance of the City of London and finance capital.
Britain out of NATO - no to war, yes to defence
The NATO drums for war are beating loudly. British workers should not ignore this, still less support it…
Rail - a crisis created by government
Rail workers should ensure that the strong workplace organisation that has been developed when they built support for their campaigns of industrial action is not dissipated...
Research: take control of our funding
The government’s fear of real independence from the European Union is nowhere clearer than in funding for research – and it’s a fear shared by too many who work in research…
Britain-wide view gaining ground in Scotland
With the SNP administration in crisis, Scots can see that many of the strikes for better wages and conditions are Britain-wide – as is the financial crisis…
Steel: hanging by a thread
Without a steel industry Britain will be dependent on other countries for our strategic infrastructure. Yet the government will not take the steps needed to keep it alive…
Abandoning the dangerous dollar
Something significant is afoot in global finance. It relates directly to workers’ daily battle with inflation, potentially also having far wider impact. And it’s about the US dollar…