Britain: Something has to give Pressures have been building up in British society. High house prices, fuel and food price increases and pay restraint and cuts particularly in the public sector are all having a huge effect on workers. It's obvious that there's going to be a change and the longer it is delayed the worse the storm is when it eventually breaks.
Should Marxists promote splits from trade unions under bureaucratic control? This article was originally published in 1971 in the Militant International Review under the title Marxism and the Pilkington Strike – A lesson from history. The Pilkington glassworks had entered into dispute and had come up against the problem of the stifling control of the bureaucracy over their union, the GMWU. The Socialist Worker advised the workers to leave and set up a new union. The Marxist tendency, gathered around the Militant, advised against this and events later confirmed the correctness of this position.
Britain: Black swans and the economic crisis British capitalism is in big trouble. The official annual inflation rate has hit 3.3%, its highest level for 16 years. The governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, has been forced to send a letter to the Chancellor of Exchequer, Alastair Darling, to explain why the Bank has been unable to keep inflation from rising at more than 2%, which is the target set by the government for the Bank.
