If you could put a price tag on ‘eternal’ and ‘inalienable’ human rights, how much would they cost? For the Evening Standard newspaper, edited by former Tory Chancellor George Osborne, freedom of the press appears to be worth a grand total of £3 million. This is what we learned this week when it was alleged that, as part of its ‘London 2020’ campaign, the Evening Standard sold favourable press coverage to several multinational companies, Read more…
Prevent is one of the four strands of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy, ‘Contest’, created by the Labour government in 2003, and later widened in 2011. It is farcically described as “a community safeguarding programme” to stop people becoming involved in terrorism. This hinges on a system of reports from ‘community figures’ and has shockingly even been spread to the NHS, threatening doctor-patient confidentiality. This system breeds an atmosphere of fear and suspicion Read more…
There is a growing sense of anger and horror at the destruction of our environment by the irresponsibility of a few – the handful of monopoly capitalists who control the banks, big business, and all the levers of the economy. It is crucially important that the movement to protect our planet starts with a clear, achievable programme, and that given the gravity of the issue we do not limit ourselves to asking Read more…
The University of London’s Senate House building provided the inspiration for the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984. It seems only fitting that the university does everything it can to live up to the Ministry’s reputation. Students recently occupied Senate House in solidarity with the IWGB strike over the outsourcing of university jobs. UoL workers – from cleaners to gardeners and security guards – are striking in order to be brought Read more…
Blairite cliques are still in control of a sizable number of Labour Student societies across the country. In Chester, Swansea and Hull these societies have released statements calling for disciplinary action against the left-wing Labour MP Chris Williamson. The statements gloss over, in vague terms, the exact wrongdoing against which disciplinary action is being demanded. But it is clear that these societies are responding to Chris Williamson’s defence of Marc Wadsworth, who Read more…
Over the last week, hundreds of workers at colleges across the country have been on strike, demanding a meaningful increase to their currently stagnant pay. After years of failed negotiations with the Association of Colleges (AoC), Further Education (FE) staff have escalated their struggle for a decent income. In a period where the average workload of FE staff has never been greater, not even the meagre 1 percent pay rise approved by Read more…
The TUC demonstration on Saturday 12 May was filled with an encouraging sense of optimism, although also with a feeling that this kind of brief demonstration is not quite enough on its own to solve the problems that working class people are currently facing. The atmosphere of optimism that surrounded the demonstration meant that 30 or so comrades of the Marxist Student Federation gathered an excellent number of emails and telephone numbers of Read more…
Beginning on 30 May the University and College Union (UCU), the largest higher and further education trade union in the world, will be holding its national congress in Manchester. On the agenda, among many other things, is a motion submitted from the Kings College London branch of the UCU expressing solidarity with Pakistani workers and trade unionists in light of repression against the Pashtun movement by the Pakistani state. Pakistan is currently Read more…
An Intergenerational Commission set up by the Resolution Foundation think-tank has published a report on young Britons’ strained living standards and the elderly’s concerns about health and social care. The report concludes that 25 year-olds should receive a £10,000 “citizen’s inheritance” to help them buy their first home or reduce their debts, stamp duty should be lowered for people moving home and billions more should be spent on health. The commission has Read more…
The most recent report from the NUS Poverty Commission, aimed at highlighting the barriers to further education faced by working class students, is the culmination of a year-long study. The problems it highlights are very real ones, which working class students know all too well, of being unable to access and get the most out of the education system for those from less well-off backgrounds. However, this report unfortunately fails to deliver Read more…
“There’s a lot we can learn from Karl Marx” according to Jeremy Corbyn. “Marxism is not dead” — those are the words written in the corridors of Goldsmiths university. Indeed, Karl Marx may be dead and buried in Highgate cemetery, but his ideas are very much alive, both within the ranks of the labour movement and on university campuses. We’re told that capitalism offers us a future of prosperity and social well-being, Read more…
Recent revelations at several university campuses have left even hardened anti-racist campaigners shocked. The abusive, sexually violent and racist language used by students about some of the people they live and work with is stomach-churning. A group of law students at Exeter University were recently revealed to have used WhatsApp to discuss other students behind their backs. They repeatedly used racial slurs and made jokes about physical and sexual assaults against people Read more…
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