At the end of the Second World War a revolt took place among the armed forces of Britain in South East Asia that is little remembered. The soldiers realised that Britain was retaining them to fight new colonial wars, against peoples they had supposedly just "liberated". The soldiers sympathised with the peoples of South East Asia who sought genuine liberation. It led to a revolt that affected the army, the navy and the air force with strikes spreading among troops from South East Asia to India, the Middle East and North Africa.

The news is full of the plans of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition to hammer the public sector in the interests of the ruling class. But “the best laid schemes of mice and men, go often askew,” as Robbie Burns wrote. This is precisely what happened to Ted Heath's government.

The present Tory-Liberal coalition is preparing to launch a major attack on British workers. History shows that the British workers have always responded to such attacks with militant class struggle. One such example was the miners' strike of 1972, a rock solid strike that shook the Tory government and prepared its eventual downfall two years later in 1974.

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