SEIZE THE WEALTH OF THE CITY

There will be jubilation in secondary schools at the announcement by schools secretary Ed Balls that Sats tests are to be scrapped with immediate effect

Activists brought the City of London to a standstill on Friday of last week in a protest that received a lot of media coverage

Gordon Brown hands billions to the bankers | Stock markets gamble with our futures

While commentators hailed Gordon Brown’s bailout of the banks as a bold move that the world would follow, few considered who would pay the bill

The collapse of the Icelandic banking system last week will have a devastating effect on thousands of council workers’ wages and pensions

Hundreds of workers in Liverpool unanimously voted to say they would take strike action against redundancies at a mass meeting on Thursday of last week

There has been a sharp rise in sales of Socialist Worker during the weeks of the economic crisis as people search for an alternative to the brutal chaos of the market

The bosses’ Financial Times newspaper’s How To Spend It supplement rushed out a special “bonus issue” this week, in a timely bid to celebrate the wealth of bankers and other City high flyers

Gordon Brown’s decision to gamble £500 billion of public money in an attempt to stem the crisis in the banking industry has stuck in the throats of millions

The crisis is also threatening financial meltdown at new hospitals built under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) as NHS trusts find it difficult to refinance their debts

A senior police officer has admitted that he tampered with his notes about the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent Brazilian man shot seven times in the head by the police at Stockwell tube station in July 2005

One aspect of New Labour’s attacks on civil liberties crashed to the ground this week when the government was forced to abandon its plans for interning people for up to 42 days without charge

Abortion rights are under attack again – and we have less than a week to mobilise to defend them

The stakes are rising in the London bus workers' pay campaign

Management at Metrobus, part of the Go-Ahead transport group, went to the High Court just hours before last week’s strike

The result of the ballot of 2,500 London Underground maintenance workers at the Metronet company was to be announced on Wednesday of this week

In what has been billed as the greatest comeback since Lazarus, Gordon Brown has been hailed as the architect of the latest international rescue plan for global capitalism

Last Friday several hundred demonstrators in the City of London grabbed headlines in Britain and around the world

New Labour’s love affair with big business goes back a lot further than Gordon Brown’s bailout for the banks

Last week Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi told people how they could stave off financial disaster – buy shares in two national energy companies – yet by the end of that day’s trading they had lost 7 percent and 8 percent in value

Mike Gonzalez looks at why the country’s new constitution is frightening the US and what it means for prospects of radical change

Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are on course to transform the US political landscape

George Bush is planning a “surge” of 10,000 US troops to Afghanistan in a desperate effort to turn the tide of defeat there

The crash of 2008 is forcing governments to make previously unimaginable inroads into the private sector

Socialist Worker argues that the bank rescue threatens further misery for ordinary people

As the recession bites, the bosses, politicians and the media will lecture workers about how we must accept job losses, pay cuts, cuts in public services and other attacks to help the economy regain stability

The fight against redundancies at the Jaguar car plant in Coventry in the early 1990s shows how workers’ collective strength can hold back the bosses’ plans

More and more people risk losing their homes through repossession or eviction due to the looming recession

The People Before Profit Charter is continuing to win new supporters across the trade union movement

Eamonn Butler of the free market Adam Smith institute debates with Chris Harman of International Socialism journal

Athlete and campaigner Tommie Smith spoke to Ken Olende about his iconic protest against racism at the Olympic Games 40 years ago – and how it came about

In the last part of our series Matthew Cookson explains how Marx’s ideas were shaped by his experience of workers’ struggle

Police row reveals the racism of the state | Bank staff are crisis victims too | ID cards are legalised stalking | Wrong about ‘clean coal’ | Gun crime: we need to talk | Private sector hell for carers | Can arms give us a leg-up? | Rewards of imperialism | Conservative crisis

Yuri Prasad celebrates the 1980 film's long awaited first release on DVD

There’s Me And There’s You is the latest album from composer and jazz musician Matthew Herbert – and it’s his most explicitly political work to date

The mainstream media continues to disregard the reality of the occupation of Iraq, but a new play Prophecy offers an insightful perspective on another US enforced catastrophe

The Off the Shelf Literature Festival features readings by well-known authors, workshops, storytelling, competitions, and literary walks

This period from the end of the Second World War to the mid-1970s was one of great political tension and exceptional creativity that touched all aspects of life

The new Coen brothers film verges on spoof

Amy Leather welcomes the take on food and class in his new TV show

Socialists and activists everywhere will be saddened to learn of the untimely death of Irene Bruegel at the age of 62

Effective strike action last week by 450 rail signallers and signal supervisors in the RMT transport union in Scotland has won serious gains from their Network Rail employer

There is a political crisis at the top of the Unite union with an emergency executive council last week agreeing to delay the full merger of the former T&G and Amicus sections for six months

Bank workers in the Unite union at the State Bank of India have voted overwhelmingly to strike over pay, and their terms and conditions

Members of the NUT teachers union in Bolton scored a significant victory last week in our ongoing campaign against academies in the town

Activists gathered in Liverpool city centre for a mass leafleting last Saturday in protest at police harassment of political stalls

Do you want to find out how your union is being run? Well, be prepared to stump up over £500

Barnsley college was brought to a virtual standstill on Tuesday of last week by a strike by over 200 lecturers in the UCU union

The London Fire Authority has announced a 15 percent budget cut on all non-front line services

A meeting of the Scottish Unison union local government branches last Friday agreed to reject the employers’ latest pay offer

There is a serious fight on in the NUT teachers’ union to win the ballot for strike action over pay

Farhan Zakaria, a popular teacher and NUT union activist at Sarah Bonnell school in Stratford, east London, is threatened with imminent deportation to Bangladesh

Lecturers in further education in the UCU union have voted by 89 percent to accept a new pay deal from October

The ballot of 270,000 civil service workers in the PCS union for a programme of industrial action over pay is to finish on Friday of this week

North London campaign beats back BNP vote | Disruptive meeting planned by Midlands journalists | Protest march on Bank of England | Defend health activist Pat Lawlor

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