red pepper issue141 may 2006

contents

features

Water

The last drop 20Water privatisation has long been promoted as the only way to develop clean water supplies in the global South. But with several high profile failures and revolts, multinationals are pulling out. Oscar Reyes reports on the shift back towards public control

Turning the private water tide 23In Bolivia, the people have revolted against the free market’s failure to ensure adequate water supplies for all. Nick Buxton reports on one of the first reverses for neoliberalism

Cover image by Eleuterio Chambi

regulars 04Letters Agony Subcommandauntie

06Activision Around the left in 30 days Natural born rebel:Javier Correa Day in the life: Workers Beer Company Guerilla guides: That will be the booze talking Party Time: Labour Crisis Know your enemy: David Cameron Temperature Gauge: What the US has done for us

14World Gary Younge: The leaderless mainstream in the US Israel: Choosing to be a cactus France: French politics back on the streets

38Infrared David Osler: Loved Labour lost

39Rear view Picture This: ID by Peter Kennard and Cat Picton Phillipps

review

Participation, power and the people 25Six years after he first reported from Porto Alegre for Red Pepper , Daniel Chavez returns to the home of ‘participatory budgeting’ in Brazil to find a struggle taking place over the soul of local democracy that has great relevance to debates in the UK over ‘localism’ and ‘community empowerment’

Whose standards are they anyway? 28It’s not just Ken Livingstone who’s fallen foul of the socalled Standards Board for England. A little-known coterie of unelected quangocrats is sitting in judgement on local councillors and supplanting local democracy. Stuart Weir calls for a revolt

The great NHS ‘deficits’ con 30With the hospital ‘deficits crisis’ dominating the headlines, amidst claims that increases in NHS funding have been eaten up by pay and other cost increases, Colin Leys looks at what is really happening in the health service

Annual General Meeting

22 April,Horse and Groom,Gt Portland Street,W1

2pm–2.45pm for AGM

3pm–5pm for discussion

This year’s Red Pepper AGM will be followed by a panel discussion on ‘New Labour’s marketisation and what is to be done to reverse it’ with Colin Leys, Catherine Needham and Dexter Whitfield.

32Drop the shop Robert Greenwald isn’t just taking on the world’s biggest retailer with his film on Wal-Mart. He wants us to rid ourselves of the whole myth of ‘retail therapy’. Carol Allen interviewshim

34Book reviews Arts reviews

coming soon Philosophy World Cup: Mark Perryman sticks up for Ingerland Italy after Berlusconi The politics of union mergers Going beyond the edge of time: Marge Piercy interviewed The nuclear industry investigated

may 2006 red pepper

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