News
Barclays plan to slash jobs
Barclays bank bosses are planning to slash their already depleted workforce massively in an information technology "e big bang". By doing so the bank aims to double its profits in three years....
New BSE nightmare
Mad cow disease may be jumping from species to species undetected by any safeguards. That is the nightmare scenario research scientists warned of this week. If true, this would make the potential ...
Homelessness Tsar is hiding the truth
Louise Casey infamously stated last year that charities were encouraging homeless people by giving them sleeping bags and soup. Casey's self congratulatory report shows that she has been moderately...
Poor can't phone home
BT, which made a profit of £2.9 billion last year, has announced that the minimum price of a call from a phone box is to double to 20 pence. The charity Age Concern says that almost one in ten pensioners...
Straw's racist visas
The government wants to charge people for appealing against Home Office refusal of a visa to visit Britain. The move comes after home secretary Jack Straw was recently forced to back down on slapping...
Rail fares soar
THE COST of travelling by train has soared 300 percent on some services. An unpublished study by the Rail Passengers' Council (RPC) has found that:* Rail travel is 40 percent more costly in real terms...
Britain's heart failure
Britain has one of the worst records in Europe for treating patients with heart disease, says a new report. Heart patients in Britain are far less likely to get potentially lifesaving treatment and...
Cancer scare
Women from poorer backgrounds are three times more likely to contract cervical cancer than women from more affluent homes. A study by Glasgow University and Leicester Royal Infirmary also found that ...
Holiday rip off
Banks are ripping holidaymakers off for £180 million a year. For every £100 spent on meals, petrol, souvenirs and hotel bills abroad, credit card handlers charge up to an extra £2.75. Cash ..

Inside the system
Paper in poll scam shock
A MAJORITY of people said in a survey that they didn’t agree with the News of the World’s recent naming and shaming campaign against paedophiles...
Supermarket
The Asda supermarket chain made Nazi Clive Potter runner up in its Local Heroes competition. Potter is a member of the National Democrats, a split from the National Front. The Anti Nazi League has ...
Dog's life?
There is a new craze hitting New York City-designer dogs....
Dome
The Millennium Dome's unpopularity is costing the public over £50,000 a week in transport costs. The Jubilee Line has been up and running-but the crowds haven't. The buses have only been used to...
Coppers lose it
Bad news for Kent police. The same cops that allowed the Nazis to demonstrate in Margate three times this year at £50,000 a time have now been forced to pay compensation to the Anti Nazi League (ANL)...
All sold out
At the last two Labour Party conferences deputy prime minister John Prescott won acclaim from delegates for promising to take rail franchises away from companies that let down the public. But the...
Low Pay
New Labour's drive to get people off benefits and into work was exposed as a sham in a survey last week. ...
File pile
A report produced last week revealed the amazing cost that goes into inspecting universities. The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education Costs, which produces reports on universities, runs up ...
Things they say
Comment
Is this as good as it's going to be?
IT IS two years since financial chaos ricocheted around the world, bringing economic hardship to East Asia, Latin America and, most notably, Russia. It has become fashionable for commentators to write...

Protest against killer policies
The press in Britain, the Czech Republic and elsewhere say protesters are planning violence and riots. But these are scare stories designed to deter people from protesting. The real violence is ...

Letters
UNISON backs debt protest
WE READ out a letter from Rodney Bickerstaffe-the general secretary of our union, UNISON-at our union branch meeting last week. It calls for every UNISON branch to support the Jubilee 2000 protest in...

Officers joked as he died
The inquest verdict was extensively covered in mass circulation newspapers such as the Sun, the Mirror and the Mail. THERESA BENNETT talked to Christopher's sister Janet Alder about the verdict and h...
'They said I sent racist mail'
"I feel totally vindicated. It is now possible to lay the silly allegations against me to rest," Virdi told Socialist Worker. Those allegations led to Sergeant Virdi getting sacked in March of this y...

Killed by the profit system he hated
SIMON JONES would have been celebrating his 27th birthday on Friday. But his life was tragically cut short on 24 April 1998 when he got a new job as a casual worker at Shoreham docks in Sussex. Simon...
New mood in heart of beast
That's how Sharon Smith of Socialist Worker's US sister organisation sums up politics across the Atlantic. The recent week of protest outside the Democratic Party convention in Los Angeles was the ...
System based on violence
"VIOLENCE IS inevitable," claimed a Guardian feature on the anti-capitalist protests against the International Monetary Fund/World Bank annual summit planned for Prague during the last week in September...

What's behind Loyalist feuding?
THE BATTLE is between two Loyalist paramilitary groups-the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). The killings have a political dimension. The battle is not only a ...

Anger behind the Carling
OVER 100,000 mainly young people went to the Reading Festival last weekend. Some of the top bands playing this year, like US band Rage Against the Machine (RATM), Primal Scream and Asian Dub Foundation...
X-Men ring bells
WHY WOULD socialists go and see a film based on a comic? Well, any socialist seeing someone being picked on or oppressed would feel tremendous satisfaction when that person turns round and fights back...
Four from Indonesia
THE NOVELS of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, a political prisoner in Indonesia, are a must. His "Buru Quartet"-This Earth of Mankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps and House of Glass-is set in Indonesia at...
A flavour from French struggle
IF YOU spot it in a cinema near you don't miss the film Human Resources. The film was shown at the Edinburgh Festival and may appear around the country in some cinemas. It gives a brilliant flavour of...
Preview

Workers squeezed for more profits
THERE IS a new mood of defiance and resistance at many car plants across Britain. Although this has not yet broken out into extended strikes, the potential is increasingly clear. The most obvious ...

Bus strikers win battle over pay
WE'VE WON! For the first time we've all stuck together. Management and the TGWU union thought it would never happen. The company took us off the road to tell us about the new pay offer. They have now ...
Postal workers
POSTAL WORKERS at the Mount Pleasant office in central London are fighting a plan to move international mail to a new centre in Langley in Berkshire. The transfer would cost up to 2,000 jobs, out of a...
UNISON
LEADERS of UNISON's Higher Education section instructed its branches to hold consultative ballots this week about taking action over this years 3-4 percent pay deals for admin and manual staff. The ...
Manchester Airport
WORKERS AT Manchester Airport are to ballot for strike action against the bosses' attacks on their conditions and union rights. The 900 workers at the airport's Ringway site are members of the TGWU...
FBU
AROUND 20 firefighters were on the streets of Newcastle on Saturday campaigning against a proposed Private Finance Initiative scheme. If the plan goes ahead Pilgrim Street and West Denton fire station...
Housing
THE Newcastle Community Alliance has called a lobby outside Newcastle Civic Centre next Thursday. The Alliance brings together local residents, campaign groups, trade unionists and several "Old" Labour...
Anti-Nazi
Around 100 anti-Nazis outnumbered the 30-35 Nazis. But the police penned in the anti-Nazi protesters once the NF began to march. The protesters never gave up and the NF could not reach their target of...
Oxford Uni Press
WORKERS AT Oxford University Press voted to end their strike against the victimisation of a union activist. The 270 workers, members of the MSF technical union, began the first day of their strike action...
Benefits Agency
WORKERS AT Poplar Benefits Agency in east London, members of the PCS union, have decided to ballot for strike action against the use of their building for a mobile phone aerial. There are many long term...
Lyons must go-lobby the MSF national executive committee
Lyons must go-lobby the MSF national executive committee Saturday 2 September 8.30am, MSF head office, Moreland Street, London EC1 Called by London Computer Staffs branch Supported by MSF London region...

'We are united to support refugees'
A REFUGEE family in Leeds seemed to have become victims of the anti-refugee witch-hunt conducted by Tory and New Labour politicians, and their friends in the press. The Yorkshire Evening Post reported...
Widdecombe hounded from festival
SHADOW HOME secretary Ann Widdecombe was hounded by angry protesters when she visited the Edinburgh Book Festival last Saturday. Some 100 protesters, enraged by her attitude to asylum seekers, joined ...
Truck driver makes stand
MANY PEOPLE are taking a stand in support of refugees. They include a truck driver who picked up a leaflet from campaigners in Brighton during a recent protest against New Labour's refugee voucher scheme...
Solidarity caravan
A "CIVIL Rights Caravan" will be touring Britain in solidarity with asylum seekers, migrants and black victims of racist attacks. It is organised by the National Civil Rights Movement. It is demanding...
Eight hours battling three foot waves
THERE WAS nearly another tragedy of desperate refugees dying on their journey to seek asylum in Britain on Friday of last week. Five asylum seekers from Ukraine rowed across the Channel from Calais in...

Low paid workers hit back
Overwhelming support for action by council staff "WE HAVE got to take a stand. Everything I believe in is being turned on its head." That is what one council worker said on Tuesday as up to 80,000 of ...
Campaign to sack Galbraith
Kick Sam Galbraith out. That is the message of parents and students across Scotland. Anger at Scottish education minister Sam Galbraith over the crisis in the Higher Still exam is growing. Many teachers...