Liam Mac Uaid

The Conservative Party, or Tories, has never really forgiven the British working class for demanding and winning the creation of the “welfare state”. Gains won included such things as free health care, council homes at affordable rents, and care for the elderly and vulnerable. From the Tories’ point of view, these are all things individuals should sort out for themselves. The modern state should provide the same level of social protection as was available to Queen Victoria’s subjects in the 19th century.

One year after workers occupied the Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight in protest at the company’s decision to cease production, a new organisation, Sureblades set up by former Vestas employees has risen from the ashes. It is due to start making blades within two months just yards from the closed factory.

The French Parliament, on the eve of Bastille Day, voted 335 to one in favour of preventing Muslim women wearing a full face-covering veil in public. The July 13 Le Monde said the new law was strongly supported by the right. The gutless Socialist Party (PS), French Communist Party (PCF) and Green Party, while being “resolutely opposed” to the wearing of the niqab and the burka, abstained. The PS’s big objection was that the legislation is a “gift for fundamentalists”. Maybe. Mostly it’s a gift for every racist Islamophobe in Europe.

Star Trek
Directed by JJ Abrams
Written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman
With Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy and Eric Bana

The second Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Conference brought together 160 trade unionists and climate change activists. The purpose of the event was to allow trade unionists to develop working class solutions to the threat that big business has created for humanity.