By Stephen MacAvoy

Photo Selena Sheridan

The huge upturn in student militancy in the past month is a significant boost to every progressive who wants to defeat the Tory-led offensive against the working class. It is the beginning of forces in Britain joining the resistance against the capitalist offensive which has been unfolding across Europe.

By Frances Davis

Photo lusciousblopster

Sinn Féin’s stunning victory in the Donegal South West parliamentary by-election on 25 November represents a huge advance in what was the first electoral test for the Dublin government since the sharp deepening of the state’s economic crisis. Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty saw his party’s vote soar from 21 per cent at the last general election in 2007 to 40 per cent of first preference votes. In a reversal of previous showings, Sinn Féin also won an increasing share of the transfers from the eliminated candidates.

By Nicky Dempsey

Photo NunoRibeiro

The Portuguese general strike on November 24th registered a major increase in the response of the working class and its allies against the attacks on social welfare, pay and jobs. The government claim that there was only 30% support for the strike in the public, and even less in the private sector was widely derided.

By Stephen MacAvoy

Photo GeoShore

There is increasing awareness that the deep cuts proposed by the Tory-led government – amounting to £81bn in 2014/15 alone – pose a threat not only to living standards of large sections of society who did not cause the crisis, but also risk sending the economy back into a downturn or years of low growth.

Sinn Féin offers a better way

By Nicky Dempsey

Sinn Féin has published its response to the Dublin government’s threatened plans to cut public spending once more in its Budget for 2011, There Is A Better Way. The Fianna Fail/ Green coalition in government has outlined planned further cuts totalling €6bn in both capital and current spending, including welfare payments to the poor. This would bring the total level of ‘fiscal tightening’ to €20.6bn since the end of 2008, which is now equivalent to 13.1% of GDP.  For comparison the British government’s current plans – among the most draconian of any major European country – amount to 9.2% of GDP.

By Jane West

Photo WavesDream

The recent results of the elections in Brazil and the USA highlight two divergent trends in world politics. Trends in the countries dominated by imperialism continue to go to or remain on the left. Since the outbreak of the international financial crisis political trends within the imperialist countries have moved to the right.