SSP Research, Policy & Media Unit
Press Release: 22/10/04

Sheridan: PCS strikers will get our help, assistance and solidarity

Scottish Socialist Party national convenor Tommy Sheridan tonight pledged the full support of the SSP and its parliamentary representatives to the civil service union PCS after its members voted to strike in defence of jobs.
PCS union members voted two to one in favour of a strike on November 5th against government plans to cut 100,000 jobs.
Tommy said;
“Yet again trade unionists are under attack from a Labour government, a Labour government now intent on throwing 100,000 PCS union members on the dole.
“In decades past it would have been Labour Party members organising solidarity with the strikers but now that task will be taken up by Scottish Socialist Party members and our parliamentary representatives.
“We will be doing everything we can to organise help, assistance and solidarity for these workers who deliver vital services and who are being treated outrageously by the new Thatcherites in the Treasury.
“Make no mistake about it, if Gordon Brown thinks he can treat these workers in the same way that Margaret Thatcher treated the miners he has got another thing coming.”
[ends]

Evening Times

Tommy Sheridan, a Glasgow MSP and leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, said: "Instead of living in a fantasy world in which the council tax is magically set according to Jack's dreams, the executive should admit the game is up and scrap it."

The Independent: "Tommy Sheridan, the leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, was also outspoken in his criticism of the decision.

'It's bad enough young men from Scotland's housing schemes and towns are sent to Iraq to kill and be killed for Tony Blair and the Union Jack but they are being sent into even greater danger for the disastrous incompetence of George Bush who is pulling the world into catastrophe.'

Picture from Indymedia UK

BBC News

Thousands of protesters, including the grieving parents of killed soldiers, have marched in London to demand the removal of British troops from Iraq.

Up to 100,000 people joined in the rally at Trafalgar Square, organisers the Stop The War Coalition said.

Police estimated about 20,000 people took part.

Rose Gentle, whose soldier son Gordon was killed in Iraq, said: "It's time for Tony Blair to pull the troops out, innocent people are getting killed."

She added: "I believe that the government is to blame for my son's death for sending him to Iraq without enough training - he had only done six months."