In Britain, up to two million workers have marched in the streets during the largest mass protest in generations. Teachers, hospital staff, garbage collectors, firefighters and border guards are participating in a 24-hour strike organized by a coalition of 30 trade unions. About a thousand demonstrations and rallies are being held across the country. Public sector workers say proposed pension “reforms” will force them pay more and work for longer before they can retire. Democracy Now! speaks with Richard Seymour, who writes of Britain’s most popular blogs, “Lenin’s Tomb.” Seymour examines how the Murdoch-owned conservative press has shaped coverage of workers’ rights even as it faces fallout from the latest developments in the phone hacking scandal. “Rupert Murdoch’s ideological power, his ability to project an image of these strikes as unnecessary, as militant, as aggressive and belligerent and so on and so forth, comes from his economic power, and he spent decades building that up in the U.K.,” Seymour notes. He also discusses how the U.K. has withdrawn diplomatic staff from Iran after protesters upset over newly implemented sanctions stormed the British Embassy in Tehran, overrunning the diplomatic buildings, chanting “Death to Britain.”

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