A long-running dispute over front of house staff wages and conditions at the Globe Theatre in London has been “settled” – for the time being. This follows a one-day strike in May 2015, with the threat of further action. A degree of progress has been made.
Never mind that whenever the people have been asked they have said they don’t want it – devolution is to be forced on England…
Separately, all these would-be devolved authorities published proposals before chancellor Osborne’s September deadline, aimed at joining up between 4 and 19 local authorities. Note the imperial ambitions of “Greater” Essex and Yorkshire.
Innovation? What innovation? The government has effectively washed its hands of the White Rose carbon capture and storage (CCS) project based at Drax power station in Yorkshire
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that ballot papers would go out to its members in early November. It is a ballot which, should it go ahead, could well result in the first national strike action by junior doctor members since the 1970s.
Unemployment is clearly related to poor mental health in young adults. Students worried about studying and money – and these concerns are increasing – also have relatively poor mental health.
Young people struggle to find decent housing. Few are able to build up the cash for a deposit, so they are locked out of the housing market.
A forward-looking, optimistic, collectively minded society will nurture and encourage its youth, ensuring they know how important they are now and for the future.
Young people are not enthused by traditional politics – but that doesn’t mean they are apathetic. Harnessing and directing interest where young workers have economic power is not easy.
The long-running dispute over the introduction of a 24-hour rail service on London’s underground took a positive turn when RMT, TSSA and Unite called off two further 24-hour strikes scheduled for the last week of August.
Why are governments (Tory, Labour) so obsessed with school testing? The latest wheeze is to test the youngest children within a few weeks of starting full-time school, when most are still just four years old.
Workers leaving school or university now have to pay individually to fund a non-guaranteed pension due in forty years’ time. That would seem an odd idea to previous generations of British workers.
In their election manifesto, the Conservatives said that by April 2016 they would cap charges on residential social care and limit the liability of any individual needing long-term care, along with a rise in the level of personal assets above which people would be ineligible for state help.
New restrictions on the right to strike, including a 50 per cent voting threshold for union ballot turnouts, plus in some “essential public services” 40 per cent of those entitled to vote must vote for industrial action.
The Trade Union Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech has resurrected every wish-list governments ever had of smashing the working class. It embodies every anti-worker measure they’ve previously tried to implement and every shred of vindictive class hatred they have had in their ranks reaching back to day one of modern capitalism.
How heartening to be in a united and determined group of workers who successfully resist a move against them or gain an improvement. What could be better?
The British motor industry is bucking the trend of decline – even though there are no longer any major British-owned motor manufacturers. It is an industry that thrives outside of the EU and demonstrably would thrive even more without the EU’s destructive restrictions.
Britain can’t properly provide for its people without a complex web of manufacture and technology. For all the talk of services, it needs industry.
This Party is for the union of England, Scotland and Wales in Britain. We are against separatism, because for a part of the British working class to leave Britain is not independence but secession, splitting. We are for Britain’s unity. We are also for Ireland’s unity.
The EU is an organisation that was formed, and is run, by the employing class for itself. We are for the interests of the working class in Britain.
In “Motorsport Valley”, the business cluster near the Silverstone circuit in Northamptonshire, around 4,300 companies employ around 41,000 people and have a combined turnover of around £9 billion a year.
The parliamentary parties are for saving capitalism and enhancing its profits. And the EU is the instrument designed for this…
With Scottish universities among the highest users of zero-hours contracts, it is fitting that the University and College Union (UCU) should hold its annual congress this May in Glasgow.
The number of young people choosing to study science is actually rising, despite the fees. From 2007/8 to 2013/14: Physics up 16 per cent, Engineering and Technology up 15 per cent, Biological Sciences up 30 per cent.
If all Britain had in the way of scientific research were just what is contained in London, we would be a global scientific power.
There’s been very little support for splitting up England whenever it has been put to the vote. Two years ago the people of Manchester voted not to have an elected mayor. They could not see why they needed yet another politician.
1. Plan announced to give Greater Manchester greater control of its finances and an elected mayor
2. Devolution agreement between Chancellor of the Exchequer and leaders of the GMCA
3. Memorandum of Understanding between NHS England and Greater Manchester
THE LARGEST NHS trust in Britain is blundering towards the precipice of bankruptcy – flawed from the inception of the Barts PFI deal, delivered under the last Labour government.
Should the arts be expected to create capital, and capital expected to fund the arts? Or are the arts an essential human function that ultimately cannot be controlled by capital?
No matter how hard it tries to push a private/public partnership agenda, the Warwick report cannot escape the key role of state education in developing the creativity and curiosity of students.
