The left’s demands should look beyond what seems possible right now, argues Christina Black Last week, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg alienated his Conservative coalition partners by suggesting that more constraints should be put on free schools to ensure that minimum standards are met. Clegg’s proposed changes would mean that free schools could only employ ...
Ben Lewis spoke at an international conference in Paris on ‘Rosa Luxemburg’s concepts of democracy and revolution’. This is an expanded version of his paper This presentation forms part of ongoing research into the origins and evolution of the political programmes of the German workers’ movement, in which I am attempting to grapple with some particularly controversial ...
Robert Eagleton reports on the Manchester policy conference The September 28 Left Unity policy conference at Friend’s Meeting House in Manchester was attended by around 100 comrades - which was good, considering many members felt that having a discussion on the policy of a new party before its founding conference was putting the cart before the ...
This weekend’s elections will be a test for Die Linke, argues Ben Lewis, especially when it comes to the coalition-making that will follow (19/09/2013) As Germany prepares to go to the polls on September 22, there are enormous issues that confront both Europe’s most important power and the continent as a whole. Given Germany’s dominance of ...
The goal of reforms to higher education undertaken by successive governments has been to subject universities to the immediate needs of the capitalist class. Through pouring money into universities, funding research, the tuition of future employees and through creating links with specific courses, capital is remodelling higher education to benefit its operations directly. The government ...
On the 10th of May TUSC held a post-election meeting in Portsmouth to look at how the organisation should move forward. In the end there were about 20 comrades in attendance including Mick Tosh and Tim Cutter (the candidates for Portsmouth North and Southampton Itchen who received 154 and 168 votes respectively) Discussion was mainly focused on ...
It is clear that the current crisis of capitalism has caused a heightening of class antagonisms. Across the world workers are striking to protect jobs and wages, and new organisations are being born of the class struggle. In recent months there has been particular focus on the troubles of the Greek people. In Greece there ...
Callum Williamson looks at the re-emergence of the struggle in Greece On Saturday 6th of December 2008 15 year old anarchist, Alexander Grigoropoulos, was shot dead by police in the Exarhia district of Athens. This was to spark weeks of rioting and the ascendance of a new movement in Greece. With this new movement came a ...
Callum Williamson looks at the need for militancy in the Workers and Students movements It is an inevitability that this economic downturn will lead to a heightened state of class conflict across the globe. In past weeks 250,000 Irish public sector workers went on strike against wage cuts. In Turkey there have been walk outs ...
The French town of Firminy has been the scene of rioting sparked by the death of Mohamed Benmouna in police custody. 200 officers were brought in and responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. The unrest began on Tuesday the 7th of July when Mr Benmouna was still alive but in a coma according to ...