Martin Rathfelder, director of the Socialist Health Association, will speak about the future of the health service at Dronfield Labour Party’s May Day public discussion meeting.

Glenn Greenwald writing in the Guardian earlier this week argued that upon their demise public figures are due a frank, rather than a respectful assessment. The ‘death etiquette’ which means we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, should not apply to public figures. The demand for ‘respectful silence’ is politically irresponsible.

During Margaret Thatcher’s time in office the ILP stood against much of what she said and did, and fought hard against her policies. Now, while Thatcher is gone, Thatcherism continues to exert a huge influence on British politics. We invite you here to post your thoughts, assessments, memories and links to the right kind of critical appraisals of Thatcher’s legacy.

Just like the YTS and the New Deal, the government’s mandatory work programme will cost billions and fail to work, argues ERNIE JACQUES.

ERNIE JACQUES looks at the implications of a recent appeal court ruling on the case of two jobseekers denied benefits for refusing unpaid work.

The tale of a north London primary school which resisted Michael Gove’s forced academy programme has been captured in a powerful new documentary. MATTHEW BROWN reports.

In September 2011, pupils and teachers returned to Downhills Primary in Haringey, north London, for the start of a new school year full of hope and optimism about the school’s future. What happened next is a tale of central government bullying and council complicity, of right-wing ideology trumping experience and evidence, of private sector power overriding local democracy and a community’s wishes.

Britons are living in fear of deepening poverty as a result of the government’s attack on the benefits system, a new poll reveals today (Monday 11 February).

The law locks up the man or woman / Who steals the goose from off the common / But leaves the greater villain loose / Who steals the common from off the goose…

The campaign for a living wage is now supported by the TUC and the Labour Party, plus many universities, some local authorities, and some businesses and charitable organisations. It is long overdue, says ERNIE JACQUES, but to have a real impact a living wage must be compulsory.

The self-declared ‘plebs’ were out in force on Saturday at the TUC’s march against austerity in London, while thousands more were on the streets of Glasgow and Belfast to voice their anger at the coalition government.

‘Plebs Unite’ read one placard. ‘Proud Loud Educated Broke’ said another. ‘I’d rather be a pleb than a toff’ was one of the many intermittent cries as somewhere around 150,000 people walked the familiar route from Victoria Embankment via Whitehall and Trafalgar Square to the bark-chip strewn mud-patch that used to be Hyde Park.

Will Hutton has been delivering a series of well-attended lectures on developing a ‘good capitalism’ out of the crisis of ‘bad capitalism’. BARRY WINTER summarises a lecture Hutton gave in Manchester, and comments on what Hutton is saying.