Details of another Summer School session:

Class or Classless Society?

Hosted by Ste Finch and Paddy Shannon

An interactive session to help develop ways to put the case against class society and in favour of a classless socialist world. What are the most effective approaches when explaining the class divide, particularly when speaking with others? What aspects of the class struggle are easiest to relate, and relate to? And how best can we promote the idea of a class-free society? This workshop is an opportunity to brush up on your debating skills and hear what others have to say.

Full residential cost (including accommodation and meals Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £100; the concessionary rate is £50. 

Book online here or send a cheque (payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain) with your contact details to Summer School, The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN. 

Day visitors are welcome, but please book by e-mail in advance. E-mail enquiries to spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk.

Greta Thunberg has warned that the world faces “total natural catastrophe” unless citizens take urgent action.

Thunberg said: “We are approaching the precipice and I would strongly suggest that all of those who have not yet been greenwashed out of our senses to stand our ground.

“Do you not let them drag us another inch closer to the edge. Right now is where we stand our ground.”

Thunberg blamed world leaders for failing to halt the climate emergency and for creating “loopholes” that allow ecological destruction to go unchecked.

“It has not only become acceptable for leaders to lie – it’s almost what we expect them to do,” she said.

She said it was time for society to start “creating hope” rather than waiting for it to arrive: “Hope is not something that is given to you. It is something you have to earn, to create. It cannot be gained passively from standing by passively and waiting for someone else to do something.

“It is taking action. It is stepping outside your comfort zone. And if a bunch of school kids were able to get millions of people on the streets and start changing their lives, just imagine what we could all do together if we try.”

Thunberg urged festivalgoers to “do the seemingly impossible” by helping to halt global warming before it is too late.

She added: “These crises are the biggest story in the world. And it must be spoken as far and as wide as possible, as far as our voices can carry and even further still. It must be told in the articles, newspapers, movies and songs; at breakfast tables, lunch meetings, family gatherings; in lifts and bus stops; and in rural shops … and music festivals like Glastonbury.”

She then led chants of “climate … justice” after delivering the speech.

Greta Thunberg has warned that the world faces “total natural catastrophe” unless citizens take urgent action.

Thunberg said: “We are approaching the precipice and I would strongly suggest that all of those who have not yet been greenwashed out of our senses to stand our ground.

“Do you not let them drag us another inch closer to the edge. Right now is where we stand our ground.”

Thunberg blamed world leaders for failing to halt the climate emergency and for creating “loopholes” that allow ecological destruction to go unchecked.

“It has not only become acceptable for leaders to lie – it’s almost what we expect them to do,” she said.

She said it was time for society to start “creating hope” rather than waiting for it to arrive: “Hope is not something that is given to you. It is something you have to earn, to create. It cannot be gained passively from standing by passively and waiting for someone else to do something.

“It is taking action. It is stepping outside your comfort zone. And if a bunch of school kids were able to get millions of people on the streets and start changing their lives, just imagine what we could all do together if we try.”

Thunberg urged festivalgoers to “do the seemingly impossible” by helping to halt global warming before it is too late.

She added: “These crises are the biggest story in the world. And it must be spoken as far and as wide as possible, as far as our voices can carry and even further still. It must be told in the articles, newspapers, movies and songs; at breakfast tables, lunch meetings, family gatherings; in lifts and bus stops; and in rural shops … and music festivals like Glastonbury.”

She then led chants of “climate … justice” after delivering the speech.

Greta Thunberg has warned that the world faces “total natural catastrophe” unless citizens take urgent action.

Thunberg said: “We are approaching the precipice and I would strongly suggest that all of those who have not yet been greenwashed out of our senses to stand our ground.

“Do you not let them drag us another inch closer to the edge. Right now is where we stand our ground.”

Thunberg blamed world leaders for failing to halt the climate emergency and for creating “loopholes” that allow ecological destruction to go unchecked.

“It has not only become acceptable for leaders to lie – it’s almost what we expect them to do,” she said.

She said it was time for society to start “creating hope” rather than waiting for it to arrive: “Hope is not something that is given to you. It is something you have to earn, to create. It cannot be gained passively from standing by passively and waiting for someone else to do something.

“It is taking action. It is stepping outside your comfort zone. And if a bunch of school kids were able to get millions of people on the streets and start changing their lives, just imagine what we could all do together if we try.”

Thunberg urged festivalgoers to “do the seemingly impossible” by helping to halt global warming before it is too late.

She added: “These crises are the biggest story in the world. And it must be spoken as far and as wide as possible, as far as our voices can carry and even further still. It must be told in the articles, newspapers, movies and songs; at breakfast tables, lunch meetings, family gatherings; in lifts and bus stops; and in rural shops … and music festivals like Glastonbury.”

She then led chants of “climate … justice” after delivering the speech.

 A significant proportion of the petrol and diesel which British drivers put into their cars comes from biofuels – these include vegetable oils from plants such as oilseed rape, wheat and sugar beet. The UK biofuel industry is an industry supplying 293 million litres in 2020.

A new report by thinktank Green Alliance has said ending biofuel use in the UK would free up space to grow food for 3.5 million people.  The huge area of land used to grow crops which go to be vehicle fuel could return to food production instead. Plant biomass production uses nearly three-quarters as much land as the entire UK potato industry and is a “strong factor” in rising food prices in the UK due to increased competition for land.

Biofuels have previously been touted as a solution to the climate crisis, but the analysis said their emission-cutting impact “has proven minimal, and in some cases, even worse than fossil fuels”. This is because burning biomass still produces greenhouse emissions in much the same way burning fossil fuels does. This is on top of the stored carbon released into the atmosphere when land is repurposed for biofuel production.

Almuth Ernsting, co-director of campaign group BiofuelWatch said, “Ending the use of food to make biofuels would immediately relieve food prices and protect millions from going without enough food…”

Ending use of UK-grown biofuels in petrol could feed 3.5 million people, says think tank | The Independent

  In Georgia and Mississippi, Black women are more than twice as likely to die in pregnancy as white women.

 What is socialism? It is people collectively running society. Instead of being the prisoners of capitalist competition and profit at any cost, it is working together for the common good, democratically for the fulfilment of human needs. Many dismiss socialist ideas as Utopian, a good ideal but people are too greedy and selfish for it to work in practice. They forget that each and every day we live and work together co-operatively on a massive scale. They forget too, the mutual aid that is displayed in every disaster. 

The Socialist Party says that it stands for the cooperative commonwealth and states boldly that the only issue for the working class is the abolition of the wage system to rescue themselves from their commodity status in modern society. And this is to be done only by a revolutionary organisation of the workers on the political field, not for reform (let us leave that to the capitalist reformers), but for revolution. We stand with the oppressed, with all those who seek a better world. The Socialist Party stands for a world which can eliminate poverty and hunger and war; a world in which freedom is more than a word in a textbook; a world in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the producers themselves and the products of mankind is available to all. We stand for socialism.

We live in a society which puts a price tag on everything. We live in a world torn by climate crises and wars. We live in a land where the great wealth are owned by a tiny minority. While working people  struggle to pay their bills, the economic elite bask in luxury. Governments support dictators and spends more on weapons of destruction than it does to eliminate poverty and hunger. We see little future in this society other than being doomed to dehumanising jobs and a culture which thrives on conformity and mediocrity. Democracy remains a word without meaning. We are cut off from the ability to make decisions affecting our own lives. The giant corporations determine all the key questions.

Around the world, humanity is saying “Enough” and is beginning to move. Athough our lives and conditions are different; though we live in different parts of the world; though our struggles take different forms; ours is a common goal—an end to the oppression and exploitation of man by man. Only when we have economic democracy, when production is planned for use and not for profit, when the right of all to share in the abundance of the Earth is established – only then will democracy be truly established.

How can the world be changed?

Certainly, no elite will accomplish the task. We do not want to replace one group of masters with another. Nor do we want the patronising assistance of those whose real interests lie with the present system. We must look to those whose interests lie in change—to the working people who work in the factories and offices of our society. They built the society—and they are cut off from power and progress by the tiny minority that owns the wealth. The bosses need the working people—but the workers don’t need the bosses. Despite the relative quiescence of the working people, it is clear that their very life situation forces them to come repeatedly into conflict with the system. They find themselves in daily conflict with the employers in the struggle for decent wages and security. The world’s peoples are clearly on the road to the most thoroughgoing social change in history.

A new world is being created—a world which will put people before money, which will create a participatory democracy at every level. The potential of mankind is virtually limitless if it is freed from economic and social oppression. We are part of the world community of socialists. We have no illusions that the way will be easy, no visions of quick success. But the future belongs to humanity and socialism.

 David Lammy, the Labour Party’s shadow foreign secretary,  refused to back demands from airline workers for a pay rise of about 10%.

sked if he supported the BA check-in staff at Heathrow who have voted go to on strike over management’s refusal to reverse the 10% pay cut imposed during the pandemic and who are represented by Unite.

“Many of us might want a rise of 10%,” Lammy said. “In truth, most people understand it’s unlikely that you’re going to get that.” Asked directly if he supported the check-in staff of British Airways,  Lammy replied: “No, I don’t. It’s a no. It’s a categorical no.”

Asked what would happen to the Labour MPs who joined picket lines to show their support for the RMT rail strike, Lammy said that the shadow chief whip, would be speaking to them “and making it very clear that a serious party of government does not join picket lines”. Lammy said Labour was the party of working people, but that did not mean it should automatically side with workers against employers in a dispute.

General secretary of Unite, Sharon Graham, called his comments a “new low” for Labour, which could not be relied upon by working people. 

Graham said that the workers were not asking for a 10% pay rise, but the restoration of money taken from them when pay was cut during the pandemic.

Graham said: “David Lammy has chosen to launch a direct attack on British Airways workers. This is a group of workers who were savagely attacked by their employer during Covid.”

BA and its parent company, IAG, had billions in reserves, and were predicting a return to profit this quarter, Graham explained. 

 She said, “Supporting bad bosses is a new low for Labour and once again shows that politicians have failed. It is now down to the trade unions to defend working people. We are their only voice.” Graham previously accused Keir Starmer of a failure of leadership after he ordered frontbenchers not to join RMT picket lines for the rail strike. “You don’t lead by hiding,” she said.

Mick Lynch of the RMT explained, “We’ve got the most peculiar economic situation in this country with full employment and falling wages. Covid has been a smokescreen for the rich and powerful in this country to drive down wages as far as they can.” 

Lynch says it has been easier to negotiate pay deals with rail firms which are not under government control.

Union accuses Labour of ‘direct attack’ on airline staff by not backing 10% rise | Labour | The Guardian

 “We are not all in this together,” said Matt Grainger, head of inequality policy at antipoverty organization Oxfam. “How many of the richest even know what a loaf of bread costs?”

“How much for my kidney?” is the question most asked of one of Kenya’s largest hospitals.

Rising food costs. Soaring fuel bills. Wages that are not keeping pace. Inflation is plundering people’s wallets, sparking a wave of protests and workers’ strikes around the world.

This week alone saw protests by the political opposition in Pakistan, nurses in Zimbabwe, unionized workers in Belgium, railway workers in Britain, Indigenous people in Ecuador, hundreds of U.S. pilots and some European airline workers. Sri Lanka’s prime minister declared an economic collapse after weeks of political turmoil.

Economists say Russia’s war in Ukraine amplified inflation by further pushing up the cost of energy and prices of fertilizer, grains and cooking oils as farmers struggle to grow and export crops in one of the world’s key agricultural regions.

As prices rise, inflation threatens to exacerbate inequalities and widen the gap between billions of people struggling to cover their costs and those who are able to keep spending.

Inflation sparks global wave of protests for higher pay, aid | AP News