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Vote Ian Drummond No 1 ULU Vice President

This is his manifesto:

I'm a final year student at SOAS and an experienced campaigner who will fight for progressive education policies to defend all London students.

As the economic crisis deepens and calls for our education to be cut intensify, London students need strong representatives to ensure that our voices are heard and our right to education defended. With youth unemployment soaring to 1 million now is the time for our government to invest in education, not cut back.

ULU, representing students across the 22 Colleges of the University of London, can be a vital part of co-ordinating the necessary campaigning to Save Our Studies. Despite often being seen as irrelevant by students, it has potential to connect to the issues that students face across London and stand up for them city wide and nationally.

As vice president, responsible for participation and internal campaigning, I promise I'd get noticed, and raise the profile of ULU.

I will:

• Demand investment not cuts - Education is an investment in the future, and a well educated workforce is good for society as a whole. I would keep ULU relevant as a campaigning student union, which puts this alternative vision forward.
  
  
• Demand equality in education: no more student debt, no to excessive international fees and for free education - the trade unions call for it and so should the student movement.
  
  
• Lead active, high profile campaigns - for example I would campaign for the London living wage for cleaners and other support staff across London universities, having been part of the campaign which won it at SOAS, and set a good example by arguing to pay ULU staff the living wage too.
  
  
• Actively support a diverse and inclusive London. Challenging racism and Islamophobia, sexism, homophobia and disability discrimination and celebrating diversity with dynamic entertainment and events.
  
  
• Defend our One Society, Many Cultures! Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, culture, religious expression and consciousness. Support a woman's right to choose what she wears and no demonisation of Muslims on campus.
  
  
• Campaign for international peace and global justice - fund education not war! Not just because it's the right thing to do but because its in the interests of students too - the government continues to spend billions on war in Afghanistan and the renewal of Trident nuclear weapons whilst it cuts back on our education.
  
  
• Support the right to education across the world. Last year in Gaza schools, universities and colleges were destroyed by Israel during the war. We must stand in solidarity with students in Palestine and defend their right to education too.
  
  
• Run an environmentally friendly union and campaign against climate change.
  
  
• Work hard to seek out students across London and assist with their problems and issues.
  
  
• Bring together all the student unions of ULU in standing up for our right to education.
  

• Active on campus in societies and the student union for many years.
  
  
• NUS Delegate for SOAS
  
  
• Delegate on the successful Viva Palestina convoy which broke the siege of Gaza, having led a fundraising campaign for aid to bring on it on campus.
  
  
• Active in my university's occupation in support of Gaza last January.
  
  
• Active in the Justice for Cleaners campaign, and successfully proposed Jose Stalin Bermudez, a cleaner and trade unionist fired after winning the living wage for SOAS cleaners, for Honorary President of the Student Union in a show of solidarity.
  
  
• Involved in making a film about the G8 protest in Edinburgh in 2005.
  
  
• Active in peace campaigns, Unite Against Fascism and anti-racism campaigns.

One Tower Hamlets or two?

"Fitzpatrick also inspired the Muslim witch-hunting Dispatches programme last Monday and has created an atmosphere inside the local Labour Party where Graham Taylor, the Labour Party chair, can describe Tower Hamlets Town Hall as a 'centre of Islamic Fundamentalism'.

"The Respect Party is standing in this election for peace, justice and equality, fairness and common sense for all sections of our diverse community in Tower Hamlets.

"We proudly welcome the two councillors who have just resigned the Labour whip and will be standing as Respect candidates in the May elections. Councillors Salim Ullah and Fazlul Haque, and other senior Labour members, including its former vice-chairman, have finally decided enough is enough. so said George Galloway at a press conference yesterday.

"We are demanding Labour candidate Rushanara Ali sacks Graham Taylor as her election agent and he resigns as Labour chair and council candidate. Pandering to racism and Islamophobia is disgusting and dangerous and we will strongly resist any attempt to divide Tower Hamlets on these lines."

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"The Labour council is keen to tell us that we are one Tower Hamlets. But it's not true," said Councillor Abjol Miah, Respect candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow. "There is a massive contrast between the opulence and splendour of Canary Wharf and the gated communities that have sprung up in East London and the conditions in which most of us have to live and work, if we are lucky enough to be working.

"There are officially 23,000 on the council's housing waiting list and officially over 15,500 families in overcrowded conditions. And yet less than one in five homes being built in the largest building programme in London are earmarked to address this housing scandal. Seven out of every ten new homes are officially "unaffordable" for the vast majority of people who live here.

"Most of the homes for the less well off are 'car free', meaning residents cannot get parking permits. To add insult to injury the council and the housing associations are pursuing a draconian parking enforcement policy ticketing, clamping and towing away cars at the drop of a hat, costing car owners hundreds of pounds.

"We are demanding a crash council house building programme which will both stimulate our depressed economy and address the massive housing crisis we are facing. And we want an end to punishing car owners."

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

With the Tories the gap between Labour and the Tories narrowing in the polls, there is every prospect now of a hung parliament. This could make Tower Hamlets the decisive influence over the next government.

Very senior Labour figures have approached George Galloway to find out our attitude towards a potential minority Labour government. This is our response.

If there is a hung parliament and George Galloway and Abjol Miah are returned as Tower Hamlets MPs, Respect will have three minimum conditions on which we will support a Labour-led government:

A massive council house building programme to address the housing scandal in this borough and across the country

The rapid withdrawal of British troops from all illegal and pointless wars

The radical democratisation of our constitution with a fair voting system, abolition of the appointed House of Lords and cleaning up Parliament - no more second homes fiddles.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

All the early indications from our canvassing support our conviction that George Galloway and Abjol Miah will be the next MPs for Tower Hamlets. We are also confident that, with the excellent candidates we have selected for the council elections, Respect can become the majority party in the council.

Galloway demands answers on Ejup Ganic

Letter to David Miliband, Foreign Secretary

Dear Foreign Secretary

Ejup Ganic

I write with regard to the arrest on an extradition request by Serbia of Ejup Ganic the former prime minister of Bosnia.

You can imagine this has startled many people in this country including many in my own constituency.

I know that you will instinctively respond that the law must take its course. This is not of course always your position.

When an English magistrate issued a warrant for the arrest of Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak and others, on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity, you immediately denounced it. You abased yourself before the government of Israel which had just massacred more than 1400 Palestinians, locked up for the duration as sitting targets, and promised Israel that you would change the law on their behalf. You said that Livni et al were welcome to Britain so far as the government was concerned.

Returning to Mr Ganic; can you please inform me of the circumstances of his being held at Heathrow? Was he arrested? Where and for how long was he held? Is he still in the United Kingdom? Is he free to leave the United Kingdom? Is he in custody; if so where and in what circumstances is he being held? Can he receive visitors in custody?

On the day that the trial in the Hague of the suspected mass murderer Karadicz opened, the news that a former leader of his victims, the Bosnian Muslims, had been seized in Britain has been extremely damaging to Britain’s already gravely wounded reputation in the Muslim world. You may not care a damn about that; it certainly consistently seems that way.

But be assured that there are many in Britain who do; and it is on their behalf that I write seeking answers to these questions. I hope you will be good enough to reply promptly.

In view of the public interest in this matter I am releasing this letter into the public domain.

Yours sincerely

George Galloway MP

NHS cuts put more hospitals at risk of Mid-Staffs failures

A key factor in the chronic lack of nursing and other staff, and desperately poor staff training at Mid Staffordshire Trust was the 150 jobs that were axed in a £10m cost-cutting operation to ensure that the Trust brought its finances into balance - to secure Foundation Trust status.

Nurse and medical staffing were slashed to well below safe minimum levels - and the Trust was rubber-stamped as a Foundation shortly before its appalling levels of care were belatedly identified by the Healthcare Commission.

But dozens, if not hundreds of NHS and Foundation Hospitals are facing cuts much larger than £10m, and much larger cuts in staffing as the squeeze on NHS spending takes effect from 2010-11. Some Trusts such as Leicestershire, Leeds, Derby, Heatherwood and Wexham, and the Royal Free are already axing hundreds of jobs.

Many more have yet to announce how they aim to deliver the required "efficiency savings" and balance their books while Primary Care Trusts concentrate on diverting as many patients as they can away from hospitals, and slash the "tariff" of payments for treating patients.

Health Emergency's Information Director John Lister said:

"Health Secretary Andy Burnham has correctly argued that lessons have to be learned from the Mid Staffordshire scandal: but it makes no sense to keep on having inquiries about it if more and more Trust managers are simply going to be forced into the same desperate situation as the Stafford Hospital management.

"There is a real danger that the mounting NHS pressure to deliver huge, quite unprecedented demands for "efficiency savings" and spending cuts - on a level never ever achieved in the NHS in its 62-year history - will drive more managers to seek similar irresponsible savings at the expense of patient care.

"If ministers - and the opposition politicians cynically trying to cash in on this tragic situation - really want to reassure the public that no such thing will happen again, we need them to take the pressure off managers, and back-track on the savings targets and cash allocations for the NHS.

"We need all the main parties to commit NOW to increase NHS spending by a minimum of 4% per year in real terms. If tens of billions can be created and spent on "quantitative easing" to benefit the bankers, no voter will object to some of the same generosity being shown to prevent unacceptable and dangerous cuts to our NHS."

Conference For A Million Climate Jobs

The third Campaign Against Climate Change trade union conference takes place against this backdrop. We will be bringing together trade unionists and environmental campaigners to discuss how best we can build a movement that wins both climate and social justice.

Come and discuss with Vestas workers how to win the fight for green jobs. Hear from contributors to the "Million Climate Jobs" pamphlet about how action now could reduce emissions and create jobs. Discuss with leading trade unionists from across the country how we should organise in the coming months to save the planet.

The conference takes place on Saturday 13 March at South Camden Community School, Central London. Organised in a "teach-in" format, there will be plenty of time for delegates to join in the discussions. There will also be break out sessions on Climate Jobs, Organising at Work, the Climate Emergency Demands and The International movement post Copenhagen.

Conference For A Million Climate Jobs

Saturday 13th March 2010
South Camden Community School,
Charrington St, London NW1 1RG

Download the flyer here

Speakers include

Alex Gordon (RMT), Tony Kearns (CWU), Manuel Cortes (TSSA), Chris Baugh (PCS), Prof. Barbara Harriss-White, Phil Thornhill (CaCC), Jonathan Neale (Million Green Jobs Commission), John Stewart (HACAN), Graham Petersen (UCU), Larry Lohman (Cornerhouse), Ian Terry (former Vestas worker

Admission £10 (£5 concessions)

Make cheques payable to "Campaign Against Climate Change" and send to:

Martin Empson, Treasurer, Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group, 611 Canon Green Court, West King Street, Salford M3 7HB

Birmingham: a cynical budget and cowardly opposition

Following the debate, Councillor Salma Yaqoob (Sparkbrook, Respect) said:

"Financial mismanagement on a grand scale by this Lib Dem-Tory council has left thousands of families in fear for their jobs and livelihoods. Job losses on this scale can only means worse services for everyone in Birmingham .

The Lib Dems and Tories claim they are only being 'responsible' but this is no more than cynical politics. They are sacrificing the future of thousands of people for the sake of a below inflation council tax rise.

Even a small rise for the richer households - well below the average for English cities - would save these jobs and our services.

Once again, the Labour Party failed to stand up to Tory and Lib Dem cuts. They had their chance to oppose the budget but meekly abstained in the final vote. Birmingham needs courageous not cowardly councillors."