Author Archive: Michael Barker

rss feed

Author's Website →

Leicester’s Local Elections, We Need Socialist Candidates Not Property Developers

Leicester’s Local Elections, We Need Socialist Candidates Not Property Developers

While some of Leicester’s 51 Labour Council candidates publicly back Jeremy Corbyn and say that if given the opportunity would vote to oppose cuts, the vast majority refuse to do so. Little wonder, then, that when Unison City Branch officially put to them a fighting strategy to stop the cuts in 2017, at that stage […]

Join the Fight-back Against All Council Cuts!

Join the Fight-back Against All Council Cuts!

Come along to one of our public meetings to find out more… https://www.facebook.com/LeicesterSocialistParty/

Posted in: Leicester, Organising
Tory Fake News & Private Failure…

Tory Fake News & Private Failure…

Tory fake news By Michael Barker, Leicester East Socialist Party Britain’s leading apologist for the government’s divisive ‘anti-terrorist’ Prevent strategy, Will Baldet, once again showed his contempt for democracy when he recently mangled the truth on Channel 4’s evening news programme. Mr Baldet chose to misrepresent the truth, in order to belittle the validity of […]

Posted in: Anti-racism, Aslef, NUT, Students, UCU
Leicester College Workers Refuse to Accept Cut in Terms and Conditions

Leicester College Workers Refuse to Accept Cut in Terms and Conditions

By Franklin O’Riordan, Leicester East Socialist Party “Management has attempted to appeal directly to staff rather than negotiating with elected workplace representatives. This has backfired. It has made more National Education Union (NEU) members all the more determined to succeed.” This is what Leicester NEU officer Ian Leaver told Socialist Party members when more than […]

Leicester’s Labour Council Continues to Implement Austerity: Why the Cuts Must be Fought

Leicester’s Labour Council Continues to Implement Austerity: Why the Cuts Must be Fought

With the Tories intent on destroying local government, Blairite-run Councils up-and-down the country just wring their hands and claim that there is nothing they can do except carry through devastating cuts. Yet many lay members of the Labour Party disagree with this spineless non-response to austerity, and in recent months two Constituency Labour Party’s (Islwyn […]

Leicester City Council Proposes Yet More Devastating Cuts to Public Services. We say Build a Movement Against Austerity

Leicester City Council Proposes Yet More Devastating Cuts to Public Services. We say Build a Movement Against Austerity

We all know the story. Tories are cutting services in the name of austerity. Labour Councils are meekly carrying them out, claiming (incorrectly) that there is nothing they can do. But what is galling is that, three years on since Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader, Leicester’s Labour council continues to justify government cut backs […]

Prison Officers Walk Out in Protest Over Rising Violence

Prison Officers Walk Out in Protest Over Rising Violence

Like the NHS, our prison service is at breaking point. Ongoing funding cuts and forced privatisations are destroying this critical public utility, making life intolerably dangerous for both staff and prisoners. This morning, members of the Prison Officers Association (POA) union from across the country, including Leicester, took part in coordinated protests (not strikes, which […]

Muddled Thinking on Anti-Semitism

Muddled Thinking on Anti-Semitism

Capitalist Labour MPs like Liz Kendall just can’t keep themselves from plotting and scheming against socialists. Earlier this month Kendall retweeted a vile anti-Corbyn attack piece that had been published in the Evening Standard by her right-wing Blairite friend, Ian Austin, the Labour MP for Dudley North. Austin, in a fit of capitalist rage, alleged […]

Posted in: Anti-racism, Leicester
If We Fight, We Can Win! Lessons From Two NHS Campaign Victories

If We Fight, We Can Win! Lessons From Two NHS Campaign Victories

“If we fight, we can win!” is the title of our just-published full-colour pamphlet (July 2018), which provides detailed analyses of two successful NHS campaigns. Covering 30 pages, you can read about how the Glenfield Heart Unit was saved and how a neurological ward at Mansfield Community Hospital was also recently saved from Tory cuts. […]

Posted in: BMA, Books, NHS, Organising
Lessons From the McDonald’s Strike: Make the Bosses Burger-off by Joining the NSSN

Lessons From the McDonald’s Strike: Make the Bosses Burger-off by Joining the NSSN

Last September McDonald’s workers took strike action at two of the food giants stores, and in doing so made history. This was the first time that McDonald’s workers had ever taken strike action in Britain. Since then many more people have joined the Baker’s Union which is presently campaigning to organise all McDonalds’ staff by […]