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

LABOUR MEPs will be spending their Easter break working out what to do now after all night talks on the working time directive broke down without agreement.

THE credit crunch has created a stampede by bank customers seeking the safe haven of old-fashioned mutualisation with the Co-op. The Co-operative Bank and its subsidiary Smile have more than doubled the number of new accounts opened in the past year, with a 65 per cent rise in people switching their accounts from other banks.

RICHARD CORBETT, the Labour MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, has hit out at Syed Kamall after the Tory MEP for London backed “the right” of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the French fascist and convicted Holocaust denier, to open the first session of the European Parliament after the Euro elections in June.

THE Foreign Office is facing calls to explain statements by Foreign Secretary David Miliband and other ministers which could lead to accusations that the FCO has misled Parliament over the controversial military aid it supplies to Colombia.

SAVE the Children, a charity more used to raising money in Britain to help impoverished children abroad, has reported a “crisis” for families here at home.

THE Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has warmly welcomed Barack Obama’s speech in Prague in which he outlined his ambitious goal of a world free from the threat of nuclear weapons.

THE British National Party has kicked off its campaign for the European elections in June by controversially comparing itself to Jesus Christ.

UNITE and London Citizens have launched a manifesto to try to improve pay and conditions for workers employed in the capital’s hospitality industry.

A Labour MP has made an extraordinary intervention in the selection of his successor amid allegations of nepotism and rule-breaking in the safe south east London seat of Erith and Thamesmead.

THE RMT union has condemned Tyne and Wear’s Nexus transport executive as “morally bankrupt” and repeated its concerns over its members’ working conditions, as the executive prepares to invite private sector bids to run parts of its Metro rail service this month.