The View from the Sun: Checking reality in an alternative universe

Ground control to Major Tom
Commencing countdown engines on
Check ignition and may god’s love be with you………..

Should a Labour Government manage capitalism or transform it?‏

Since his election to Parliament in 1987 Alan Simpson Labour MP for Nottingham South has been a trenchant critic of deregulation, euro-monetarism and war. Simpson is retiring as an MP and his final newspaper article, published in the Morning Star, is a tour-de-force analysis of the banking crisis, the role of the state and the potential for a ‘new, sustainable, industrial revolution’.

The Election is Now

After months of the phony war, the countdown to election day now begins. For those for whom defacing Tory election posters is not just a sport but a vocation in life, the season opens.

Defend our pensions - fight back on CBI executive's pay‏

The CBI has fired yet another shot in their war on our pensions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8604112.stm claiming once again that they are unaffordable. As everyone knows all of the public sector pensions have gone through a revision of costs and contributions over the last couple of years supported by trade unions, government and public sector employers.

FT promotes outsourcing to defeat public sector unions‏

An editorial in the FT reviews the industrial relations scene in Britain and notes that a reduction of 12% in Government departmental budgets by 2015 means that ‘conflict is inevitable’ with public sector trade unions.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/64838478-40d6-11df-94c2-00144feabdc0.html?

Labour 's belated embrace of the living wage‏

The Daily Mirror reports that a commitment to a living wage of £7.60 will form the ‘centrepiece of Labour's election manifesto’ http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/04/05/wage-war-115875-22162834/

Tar Sands Video

Hi there, we've created a short video that we'd like to share about the Alberta Tar Sands http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke4JBb_wMNs
Felix Gonzales

BP/Shell Tar Sands Campaign Hots Up - 4,000 activists contact pension funds‏

UNISON's national campaign to bring the oil giants BP and Shell to account is making real progress, particularly where pension fund members have requested the pension fund to vote for the two resolutions on the agenda at both companies' AGMs.

Where did all the strikes go?‏

A sobering fact is stated in an article in the current edition of the Economist.
Fewer days have been lost through strike action in the entire period 1990 to 2010 than were lost in a single year in 1984. http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15825744

Massacre at Sakiet by Andy Croft‏

After André Fougeron’s Massacre à Sakiet III

How well we know these careless faces -
The naked bodies in a heap,
The ecstasy of death’s embraces,
The young boy smiling in his sleep.