The modern May Day has its origins in Australia where workers in 1856 organised a day of complete stoppage together with meetings and entertainment as a demonstration in favour of the eight-hour day.
John Gowland, SP Perth

The Socialist Party sends May Day greetings to our comrades in the CWI and workers and youth across the world. May Day has historically been celebrated as a day of international working-class solidarity and struggle.

Editorial from the May edition of ‘The Socialist’
The cry is often heard that Australians are paying too much tax and that the tax burden has to be reduced. Usually those putting forward such a cry have in mind exactly where any tax cuts should go to and they are not to the least well off. [...]

Relentless campaign sponsored by university Rector to ban Active Left Students (ALS).
Our student society in Belgium is under threat of exclusion from the University of Ghent for fighting racism.Please take moment to sign the online petition to support Active Left Students.

Make capitalism history - Fight for socialism!
On May Day, workers and socialists honour and celebrate past struggles and recommit ourselves to international solidarity, struggle and socialism.

The protests by students and young people in China, and similar protests in South Korea, against Japan?s resurgent militarism, are causing growing apprehension among world political leaders, businessmen and now, it seems, the Chinese regime itself.
Laurence Coates, Taipei

Intensified speculation a symptom of approaching crisis in the world capitalist economy.
Lynn Walsh, Senior Editor of Socialism Today reports.
One measure of the surge in speculative activity is the sharp rise in foreign exchange (FX) dealing. In September 2004 the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published its sixth triennial survey of foreign exchange and derivatives trading [...]

Last week the Green Party in the UK launched their election manifesto.
They put forward many policies that socialists also support - on the environment, against nuclear power and against the war in Iraq.
The Greens in Australia have many similar policies, but if they were implemented would they actually work?
Jon Dale (Socialist Party England [...]

Against the backdrop of the general election campaign in Britain.
Peter Taaffe General Secretary of the Socialist Party (England and Wales) has written this article on the current state of the world economy.

Reproduced below is an article from the Irish Independent from Wednesday 13 April outlining the excellent role played by Joe Higgins in the Daíl (Parliament) as a representative of working class people fighting for their rights.