First it was Tunis, then Cairo, then Wisconsin, and now Spain. The crisis of capitalism has set in motion a tsunami that is impossible to control. All the representatives of the old order have combined to halt it: politicians and police, judges and trade union bureaucrats, the hired press and the television, priests and “intellectuals”. But the tsunami of revolt rolls on from one country to another, from one continent to another.

The Walton by-election, in Liverpool, took place in July 1991, twenty years ago. It arose after the sudden death of Eric Heffer, the left-wing Labour MP for Walton. At the time it created quite a political stir. It was also a key factor in the demise of the Militant, which had boasted it could win the seat, but failed miserably. The whole episode played into the hands of Labour’s right wing that used it to expel Militant from the Labour Party. To understand what happened we need to take a brief look at the background.

On Thursday history was made as the Scottish National Party, who only a decade ago seemed destined to play second fiddle to the Labour Party in Scottish politics, became the first party in the Scottish Parliament's twelve year history to form a single party majority. More importantly, for the first time there is a pro-independence majority in the Parliament, and consequently a referendum on whether Scotland should leave the United Kingdom will be held within the next five year term.

Elections are simply a snapshot of the mood at any particular moment in time, but they can reveal a lot about the real underlying processes taking place in society. That was the case with the May local elections, which marked the first anniversary in power of the Coalition government and from which we can draw important lessons.

Last Thursday’s elections in the North saw a further swing towards both the DUP and Sinn Féin. This reflects a drawn out process that has gradually eroded the support for the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

As the election results come in (with the AV vote expected tonight) we take a quick look at what they all mean. We will return to these questions shortly  with a more detailed analysis.

Saturday 26th March 2011 marked a watershed point for the modern Labour Party. The Trade Union Congress had called for workers, students, pensioners and all those affected by the coalition cuts to converge on the capital. The question was: would Labour show up to the party too?

While the Great and Good were busy spending our money on the Royal Wedding, low-paid cleaners at Buckingham Palace were fighting to increase their meagre wages to something like a decent level. Sign the petition in their support.

On Friday 29 April the people of Britain will be invited to participate in the joyful celebration of the marriage of Mr. William Windsor and Ms. Katherine Middleton. At the same time that the government is cutting billions from unnecessary extravagances such as hospitals, schools, teachers, nurses, the old and the sick, the unemployed and single parents, the Coalition has had the good sense to spend a lot of money on something as essential to the Public Good as the nuptials of Willy and Kate.

The coalition government of Angela Merkel of the CDU, CSU and FDP in Berlin, known by the colours of these parties as “black-yellow”, has lost a significant amount of its support since the election victory of September 2009.

The French army has bombed the residence of Laurent Gbagbo, to "protect civilians" we are told. One is struck by the wide variety of means used to achieve this so-called “humanitarian” objective!

In yet another turn of the IceSave saga, the people of Iceland are to vote on Saturday in yet another referendum on whether to accept collective responsibility for the debts of the failed Icelandic bank IceSave. We have received a following letter from a group of Icelanders which we republish here with our comments.

The announcement that the Irish banking sector needs another €24 billion, that’s €24,000,000,000 in real numbers or another €5,500 for every Irish man, woman and child, is another sign of the capitalist crisis in the state. Standard and Poor’s one of the main international credit agencies has now downgraded Ireland by a further point.

The magnificent 500,000-strong demonstration on 26 March – the biggest trade union demonstration in the history of the British labour movement – was a marvellous response to the Coalition’s austerity measures. It sends out a clear message: the workers of this country are not prepared to take the government’s austerity measures lying down.

Some commentators described it as a “democratic revolution.”They were not talking about the current uprisings in parts of North Africa or the wave of mass demonstrations across the Middle East. Rather they were talking about the results of the 26-county elections, which saw the dominant force, Fianna Fail reduced to a mere handful of seats, 20 in all.