Desperate times

Once again the holiday period has taken its toll on our finances. With only three days to go before the end of our August fund we have only £343 towards our target of £450.

Comrades, the raising of this amount is not some optional extra, but an essential prerequisite for the publication of the Weekly Worker at its current size and quality. In other words, we need the full £450 each and every month just to meet our running costs. What we do not get one month we must make up the next. However, after last month’s large deficit our shortfall for 2002 has now reached £485 - we only actually made our target in January and March.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Firstly we will keep the August fund open until noon on Monday September 2 - hopefully by then we will not have fallen further into the red. If comrades send off their donations immediately there is no reason why we cannot achieve the full £450.

Secondly, we must ensure that from now on in there are four months of surplus. That would best be served if as many comrades as possible made provision for regular payments in the shape of a standing order.

Special thanks this week to comrades EG (£30), TJ and RS (£20 each). Without your help we would be staring at an even greater deficit.

Robbie Rix

Ask for a bankers order form, or send cheques, payable to Weekly Worker, BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX

Weekly Worker 445 is available in pdf format as zipped (1.55MB) or unzipped (2.02MB) files

Number 445

Thursday August 29 2002

The Weekly Worker is available from bookshops across the United Kingdom or can be delivered direct to your door by completing our online subscription form.

How to beat the fascists
The Anti-Nazi League recently claimed a major victory over the fascist British National Party. Seasoned observers on the left could be forgiven for wondering when it has ever claimed anything else, writes Mark Fischer

Letters
No AWL split; Anti-semitic?; Double standards; Debating Labour; Slate system; Death fast; Net socialism

Earth Summit: March attacked
Dale McKinley reports from Johannesburg

Origins of fascism and the new right
Jack Conrad dissects a political phenomenon

'Youth conference' stitch-up
Tina Becker assesses preparations for the Socialist Alliance's 'New imperialism, new internationalism' meeting

Reviewing our constitution
Marcus Ström reports on the deliberations of the SA's constitution sub-committee

Resistance and class independence
Last week we reported on the launch of a new paper by the comrades of the International Socialist Group and the Socialist Solidarity Network. Phil Hearse responds to the criticisms

Gossip sheet or new Iskra?
Every serious revolutionary regards the Weekly Worker as required reading - as shown by our subscriptions, sales and web hits. And yet a common attack from opponents on the left is that it is nothing but a ‘gossip sheet’. Editor Peter Manson dissected this and other such attacks at the CPGB’s Communist University earlier this month. This is an edited version of his speech

A spoonful of tar
Ian Donovan replies to the AWL's Clive Bradley

Alternative nationalism
Sarah McDonald reports on the recent meeting of the SSP's national council

This sick society
Renee Marsden takes a look behind the Soham murders