From Dublin to Galway, Cork to Dundalk, and in Waterford, Sligo, Tullamore and Limerick, thousands of Civil Servants, Teachers and Local Government workers are marching against the Governments attacks. The demonstrations will give a clear signal to Cowen and Lenihan that if they want to attack our wages and our jobs and services then they will have hundreds of thousands of angry workers and their families to deal with. Its never a good idea to attack all your enemies at once.

November marks the 150^th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. This book revolutionised thinking about the living world because for the first time it provided an explanation for the evolution of species, something that was long suspected by scientists. Darwin’s simple idea – change by natural selection – is arguably the single most important foundation-stone upon which all modern biology is based. The Origin of Species was a triumph of the materialist world outlook, even if Darwin himself didn’t quite put it that way, and for that reason its publication was celebrated by Marx and Engels. .