Pick up the pace

The long-awaited redevelopment of Wembley Stadium will eventually be given the go-ahead this week. When finished, the revamped arena will boast a capacity of 90,000.

One of the largest things about the redevelopment is the attached price tag - the final cost is estimated at £750 million. This will make the redeveloped Wembley the most expensive sporting venue in the world (for example, the Stade de France weighs in at only £480 million).

Of course, talk of the outlay of such vast sums of money will have a slightly unreal air for most supporters of the Weekly Worker. Our needs are rather more modest. But so too are our means. Nevertheless the Weekly Worker aims to be the best political paper on the left and that is no doubt why we get an impressively healthy list of donations.

Thanks this week are due to comrades MH (£25), FR (£20), BF (£20), RP (£15) and CP (£6). Their £86 gives us £351 towards our £450 monthly target with less than a week left for September’s fund. But we still have £99 to get and we have less than a week to do it in.

Time to pick up the pace, comrades.

Robbie Rix

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

Weekly Worker 449 is available in pdf format as zipped (2.08MB) or unzipped (2.46MB) files

Number 449

Thursday September 26 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.

Main enemy is at home
Mark Fischer outlines a communist perspective on the looming war in Iraq

Letters
Vote SPD; CWI Germany; Bullets, not ballots; Kiwi Labour; Beyond our Kenna; Think about it; Muslim names; Support the war; Homophobia; Hoax letter; That Dave; Blinkers off; Get it right

Strategies for Palestinian liberation
There are huge differences on the left on Israel and the struggle for Palestinian self-determination. We organised a three-cornered debate at Communist University 2002 between Cathy Nugent of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, Afif Safieh, the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s UK representative, and John Bridge of the CPGB. All speakers are committed to a two-state solution for the two peoples and yet, especially when it came to assessing Zionism as a political phenomenon, there exist profound disagreements

Formulation nine and the dictatorship of the proletariat - part two
Jack Conrad continues his reply to those who have attacked the recently updated ‘What we fight for’ column as a move to the right

Common sense and the Labour left
Marcus Ström calls for an intelligent engagement with Blair's left wing

Scargill back as Crow flies
The SLP's Simon Harvey anticipates the forthcoming party congress

Mobilisation for reaction
Ian Donovcan dissects last weekends 400,000-strong 'Liberty and livelihood' demonstration

After New Labour
Has Labour become just another bosses’ party? Is Tony Blair’s government qualitively different from Attlee’s and Wilson’s? Labour Party plc, by Socialist Alliance member Dave Osler, is released this week and provides some thought-provoking answers

Defending Iraq
Liz Hoskings takes issue with the CPGB and calls for ‘military support’ for Iraq against Bush and Blair

Unity for two states
Peter Manson calls for unity based on mutual recognition of national rights to defeat the twin terrors of Hamas and Sharon