Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

IF, LIKE me, you spend much of your working week in front of a computer at home, checking and re-checking your email inbox every few minutes becomes almost a compulsion. How else do you catch up on the gossip and those “water-cooler” bulletins of such importance that they cannot wait until a regular break in the working day?

HIGHER education is a global business nowadays, with an estimated market value of between $40 billion and $50 billion, according to the World Trade Organisation. Few examples illustrate this better than the rush by British universities to open lucrative campuses in the Middle East and Asia.

IS SWINE flu really about to overtake the country or is it just Government hype and scaremongering to distract us from the economic recession and MPs’ extortionate expenses claims?

Reform of our disgraced Parliament will probably have to be led outside Westminster, given the current standing of MPs

GORDON BROWN has said that more needs to be done to clear up the mess created by the expenses scandal and the ignominious departure of the incompetent, pompous and arrogantly out-of-touch House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin. Those who still defend him on the grounds that he was eased out by the Establishment because of his working-class roots insult the working class.