The US Republican administration has wasted no time in tightening the economic vice on the Caribbean island, with State Department officials making it clear that the aggression is only just beginning, writes NATASHA HICKMAN
Calling time on academies: education is too important to be at the mercy of profiteers
HANK ROBERTS writes that his own experience of exposing a headteacher who had misappropriated millions in school funds and then spending almost a decade trying to bring him to justice shows how inherently corrupt the academies system is

THE private takeover of state education is a longstanding concern of the NASUWT, other education unions, the TUC and education pressure groups.
The majority of this country supports the NHS: run by the state for the people, not the privateers. The majority also support this for state education. We need to say unequivocally academies and “free schools” should be returned to local authority control.
Margaret Thatcher started the mass privatisation of Britain, but even she did not dare try it on state education. That was left to Blair’s New Labour.
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HANK ROBERTS welcomes news that asbestos has been judged too dangerous to leave in situ in schools and public buildings, and issues a clarion call to readers to help make sure action is actually taken

HANK ROBERTS warns that new research predicts a catastrophic rise in asbestos-related deaths among former pupils and teachers as school buildings deteriorate, bursting the ‘it’s safe if not disturbed’ myth

HANK ROBERTS looks at the Prime Minister's record and concludes Dawn Butler may have had a point this week

In the class war strategy must come before tactics — and that means we must focus on how we are going to fight austerity after Covid-19. HANK ROBERTS prescribes uniting all those who can be united
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Parents, teachers, the council and local MP have united to oppose plans for Byron Court primary school to be taken over by the Tory donor-founded Harris Federation after a widely disputed Ofsted inspection, reports BERNY TORRE