Nationalise the Utilities Campaign

The Tories claim that massive cuts are necessary because of New Labour's excessive public spending on services and welfare. This is a giant con trick, which every capitalist party - including New Labour - is colluding in. Nothing could be further from the truth. Under New Labour, as under the Tories before them, public spending on measures that decrease poverty has fallen back and as a result inequality and - for much of New Labour's tenure - poverty, have increased.

Introduction
The partition of Ireland was a conscious act on the part of British imperialism chiefly intended to divide the working class along sectarian lines. As the recent troubles have made the publication of works on Irish history more profitable, a host of academics have presented ever newer accounts of the division of the country. In the midst of this welter of publication the above straightforward fact about partition has often been lost sight of. In particular this has been the case among those who have spent their energies seeking some justification to rationalize and excuse the division of Ireland, so that they, in turn, may excuse themselves from opposing this division. Above all, this is true of those who justify partition with the completely false idea that the division of the country somehow reflects the existence of two separate nations in Ireland.

There are important lessons from women’s struggle in Chinese history that should be studied again

International Women’s Day was celebrated for the first time in China in 1924. By then, growing workers’ and women’s movements were already developing. The Hunan Women’s League was formed in 1921. By the end of that year they had pushed through provisions on women’s suffrage and personal freedom in Hunan’s constitution. The Association for Women’s Rights in Zhejiang province issued an appeal for women to join the revolution to overthrow the warlords and introduce democracy. In Shanghai, 20,000 workers in the silk spinning industry went on strike in 1923 demanding a 10-hour day and wage increases. Chen Pi-lan, who became a Trotskyist, was one of the leaders of the Communist Party Women’s League in Shanghai.

Paddy Meehan - a former Communication Workers’ Union representative in HCL and the Socialist Party’s candidate for Laganbank and South Belfast in the upcoming elections – has called for the call centre firm’s books to be opened for inspection by workers facing job losses and attacks on their conditions.