Party conferences fire starting gun on 2015 general election campaign

20th September 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Nicky Dempsey and Jane West

It is little more than a year and a half until the next general election and already the main issues in each party’s campaign are being delineated.

Labour is still virtually certain to be the largest party after the next election as the long-term decline in the Tory vote will be further depressed by five years of austerity. Electorally the main question is whether Labour wins a majority – and of what size – or whether it is forced into coalition with the Lib Dems.

Review: A season in the Congo

10th September 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Tom Castle

Patrice Lumumba was murdered in 1961. The leader of Congo’s first post-colonial government lasted just weeks in office and was dead within months of his election. A Season in the Congo, playing an extended season at the Young Vic, is a joyous celebration of his life and a poignant record of his death.

Photo: US Navy

US prepares its war against Syria

6th September 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Paul Roberts

Whilst President Obama tries to tie down support this week in advance of forthcoming Congressional votes, the US military is preparing an immense assault on Syria. US imperialism does not make idle threats, so it intends that the attack will proceed. Members of Congress are being told that a ‘no-vote’ next week, against air-strikes, would catastrophically weaken the US for years to come.

It is the imperialist powers and their allies who use chemical weapons

3rd September 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Tom Castle

Propaganda in this country and by the other imperialist powers has sought to portray the use of chemical weapons as a uniquely barbarous act. Nick Clegg speaking in the Commons debate where the government lost in its initial efforts to authorise air strikes claimed they had not been used in a hundred years. More circumspectly, Foreign Secretary William Hague claimed they had not been used in this century.

Both are completely wrong and in trying to create a pretext for attacking Syria attempt to hide the role that the imperialist powers themselves have played in the use of chemical weapons. Chemical weapons are created by industrial processes. The most advanced industrialised countries, until recently solely the imperialist powers, have access to the most sophisticated chemical weapons, either for their own use or for sale to the reliable allies.