As a million public sector workers geared up for a historic day of strike action, rediscovering some of the inherent strength and fighting spirit of the labour movement, Labour ministers and senior party bureaucrats were revealing how far they have travelled from any notion of socialist principle.
Since our last issue the grotesque revelations about the business dealings of Tessa Jowell's husband (whose close relationship with dodgy right wing Italian Premier Berlusconi echoes the friendly visits to his villas by Tony Blair and Cherie have dovetailed seamlessly into the "loans for peerages" row, and the contortions of Labour and Tory chiefs seeking to keep the wraps on some of their wealthy and most secretive (and politically unsavoury) supporters.
Again and again we are reminded that New Labour is mexorably drawn wy maguelic attraction to the super-rich -and of course to those who share Blair's commitment to the foreign policy objectives of George W Bush.
But for Blair's ministers the attraction to big money brings a corresponding repulsion from the trade unions and the working class (especially young workers), from public services, from pensioners and the poor, and from any notion of social solidarity.
The result is a government locked in to the most conservative and reactionary political agenda - cracking down on civil rights, privatising health care, education and public services, ripping off today's and tomorrow's pensioners, erecting new barriers to exclude refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers, and widening the gap between rich and poor.
One reason they have been so dependent on billionaires and shady business types is that New Labour as the party of war and neoliberalism has haemorrhaged members and faced cuts in funding from its affiliated trade unions.
The question many will want to ask is how Blair's team expects to be able to repay or even service the £14m of loans that have now come to lightand what they will now be offering the wealthy in return for cash to prop up their politically and financially bankrupt party.
But for those who want to see working people and their interests represented, there is no short-cut, and no queue of well-heeled business donors: a new, alternative party has to be built from the ground up - and Respect has made an important start in grouping those most willing to fight for a genuine and broad left wing alternative to Blairism.
OFFICIAL French workers rediscover social solidarity, while a British striker discovers the French mobilisation differs from those
Britain The benchmark for the local government pension scheme SUKeS Were Sel October when other two months to unions in Britain settled for a two-tier worklorce, with tnose coming JILO the scheme after the dispute - the youngest section of the future pubnc sector workforce - gaining nothing from Solidarity
In contrast, French workers have taken strike action time and again over the last two months to defend the rights of young workers.
Workers, and school students in France are building a powerful alliance to demand the withdrawal of a measure that would allow employers to sack those under 26 in the first two years in a job with no reason at all.
This unity between different sectors has been stronger from the beginning than in other previous struggle.
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rights - as well as from the experience of the revolt in the big housing estates last autumn. In Britain the pensions dispute continues as we approach the local elections in May. Regional days of action are taking place on April 25,26 and 27. Respect activists need to make sure that the lessons of the French struggles - and the message that there is a political organisation here in Britain that will stand shoulder to shoulder with those fighting to defend their rights al work - ecnoes loud ana clear amongst those workers This will be one of the most effective ways to give Blair a bloody nose on May 4.
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Roger Welch, member of NATFHE at the University of Portsmouth LECTURERS in British universities are currently engaged in the most major and potentially bitterest dispute since the early '90s when NATFHE members from the former polytechnic sector took industrial action to defend our nationally negotiated terms and conditions of service contained in the 'Silver Book'. Whilst that action successfully secured a national contract, Lne compromises
aut NATFHE STRIKING
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Andrew TOGER