Introduction

Thatcher is proclaimed to be a self-made politician but her ideas, policies and strategies were developed over many decades. Friedrich Hayek inspired Thatcher and Pinochet, the Chilean dictator and mass murderer. Hayek and his followers were economic liberals. Others who followed included Milton Friedman, Alan Walters, Keith Joseph and Alfred Sherman, who once said “As for the Lumpenproletariat, coloured people and the Irish, let’s face it, the only way to hold them in check is to have enough well armed and properly trained police.” This was part of Thatcher’s schooling. Here Bill Hunter deals with some of this important history.

Professor Stephen Hawking, the world-renowned theoretical physicist, is backing the academic boycott of Israel by pulling out of a conference hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem as a protest at Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

On Sunday 30 March Sunderland football club welcomed Paulo Di Canio, a self-confessed fascist, as manager. He admitted in his autobiography: “I am fascinated by Mussolini, I think he was a deeply misunderstood individual. He deceived people. His actions were often vile. But all this was motivated by a higher purpose. He was basically a very principled individual.

Martin Ralph, interviews Sarah Murphy, member of the PCS, who helped form a group against the bedroom tax in March in Leasowe, Wirral.

For a Socialist and Workers International Alternative

In Europe, one of the epicentres of the world financial and economic crisis, workers and oppressed face a deepening social war that aims to destroy all the historical conquests of the working class.

Margaret Thatcher died on 8 April 2013 and the vast majority of ordinary people greeted her passing with undisguised joy.

The article below was written for the Socialist Voice in 1989 by Rae Hunter. The article shows she knew where the attacks on public health were leading if the workers’ socialist struggle did not stop them.

The Government launched its White Paper on the National Health Service on 1 February 1989. Margaret Thatcher called it “the most far reaching reform of the National Health Service in its forty-year history”. The Government declares it will extend patient care and reduce waiting lists. Yes! – for those with money it will provide these things, but for the poor, the old, the mentally disabled and the chronically ill the life-line will be severed.

Martin Ralph, International Socialist League, interviewed Aimi Molloy, Women’s Representative, Fire Brigades Union, Liverpool

Speech by John Ritchie, member of Stand Up In Bootle, Merseyside at the 28 February march and rally in Bootle.

It is time to end the unjust, unethical, unfair, evil demonisation, persecution and penalisation of the working classes, employed and unemployed, sick, disabled, poor and those on benefits and low incomes!

Daniel Campos, member of the Argentine PSTU and author of ‘The End of the Corporation’ published in Spanish 2012. Available in English in 2013.

George Osborn selected Canadian Mark Carney to take over from Mervyn King amid great excitement in the City of London, but who is he and why the euphoria?