News and Analysis

Hundreds of people have marched and rallied at Cardiff Bay police station to protest the death of Mohamud Muhammed Hassan shortly after being released from custody at the police station. Despite Covid restrictions inevitably inhibiting the turnouts, hundreds of working people from all over Cardiff have continued to assemble as carefully as possible at the police station, outraged at police brutality that ...

Socialist students in Swansea and Bangor universities have called rent strikes against the rip-off of students by the university bosses. Students are being charged full £9000 fees and rent despite being prevented from attending lectures or university by the Covid crisis. A Swansea Socialist Student explains: “Since moving to university in September, students at Swansea university have been treated as ...

By Socialist Party members in education https://spined.co.uk NEU Executive announces emergency decision to call on members to exercise ‘Section 44’ Our schools and colleges are not safe. Full classrooms provide an environment where the new variant will quickly spread. No member of staff and no pupil should have to work in such dangerous conditions.That’s why, to protect their safety, and ...

By Hannah Sell, General Secretary of the Socialist Party The world was united in misery in 2020. Too many deaths from the pandemic, job losses, pay cuts and poverty were the experience in virtually every country on the planet. Britain, as the year ends, is leading the world in a new surge in the virus; with the highest ever level ...

By Dave Reid The rightward drift of Labour under Keir Starmer was confirmed by Welsh Labour’s scandalous voting down of a proposal in the Senedd/Welsh Parliament to introduce free school meals for all children in receipt of universal credit. Wales has the highest levels of child poverty in the UK but under Welsh Labour we also have the least provision ...

Belatedly the Welsh government has announced the closures of secondary schools in Wales next week, but not of primary schools – yet. This was a last minute reaction to the rising cases in Welsh schools and the fact that large numbers of pupils and teachers were indicating that they would in effect boycott the schools any way so they could ...

By John Williams (Bar worker Unite, Cardiff in a personal capacity) Hospitality has been one of the worst effected industries during the Covid pandemic. There were over 30,000 job losses at the beginning of the crisis. Many weren’t eligible for furlough. Hours were cut drastically and people were sent home early as demand plummeted. Then we had Boris Johnson and ...

By Ross Saunders The Welsh government’s strategy for containing the virus is not working. Wales currently has the highest infection rate in the UK and a record 1800 people in hospital with the disease – higher than during the first wave. But the Welsh government’s half-measures response will neither stop the spread of the virus nor protect the incomes of ...

By Gareth Bromhall Following the recent spending review announcement Swansea and District Trades Council called a socially distanced rally in the city centre on Saturday 5th December. The event drew together socialists, activists and activists from across the city and the surrounding area. Speakers from several unions, surrounded by banners and a crowd of around 30, called on the Tory ...

By Dave Reid An extended version of an article in The Socialist “Devolution is a disaster” was the reported words of Boris Johnson referring to the Scottish government and “Tony Blair’s biggest mistake”. In fact Blair was a reluctant devolutionist. He would rather not have held referenda to devolve power to the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament in 1997, but ...