Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO reports from the start of Kunming’s Belt and Road media forum, where 200 journalists from 71 countries celebrated a new openness and optimism, forged by China’s enormous contribution to global development
‘We were staying out, ballot or no ballot’
In the first of two features, ex-miner PAUL KELLY shares his experiences as a 24-year-old striker in the miners’ strike against pit closures of 1984-5
Women opponents of the Trump regime fear his misogynist, racist and anti-immigrant views are taking hold in Britain, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER, as protests against his visit hit London’s streets
It is rather strange that Labour continues to give prestigious roles to inappropriate, controversy-mired businessmen who are also major Tory donors. What could Labour possibly be hoping to get out of it, asks SOLOMON HUGHES
Politicians who continue to welcome contracts with US companies without considering the risks and consequences of total dependency in the years to come are undermining the raison d’etre of the NHS, argues Dr JOHN PUNTIS
MISH RAHMAN introduces the platform of a new organisation within Your Party, which will campaign for the highest level of democracy, accountability and participation, having learned from the mistakes of Labour in the 2015-19 era
ANDREW MURRAY wonders what the great communist foe of Oswald Mosley would make of today’s far-right surge, warning that while the triumph of Farage and ‘Robinson’ is far from inevitable, placing any faith in Starmer in an anti-fascist front is a fool’s errand
I WAS born in Lower Broughton, Salford, in Sussex Street, next to Andrew Street, where Ewan McColl was born. My father, grandfather and uncles were all coalminers.
My uncle Harold worked at Bradford colliery and was a friend of the playwright Jimmy Allen. Mining and politics were my life from an early age.
I began work at Agecroft colliery in the late 1970s. My dad also worked at the pit. I took part in the strikes of 1969, 1972 and 1974 picketing with my dad — all great victories for the miners and the working class.
More from this author
In the second of two features, ex-miner PAUL KELLY records his experiences at the battle of Orgreave when police mounted an unprecedented attack on striking miners, and what he did in the aftermath of the great strike
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In the third extract from her new memoir, former NUM headquarters staffer HILARY CAVE recounts how women throughout the striking coalfields showed their mettle when the going got tough
PETER LAZENBY is fascinated by a book of cartoons that shows how newspaper cartoonists were employed to, on the one hand, denigrade and, on the other, to defend the miners’ strike of 1984-85
Remembering KEN CAPSTICK, vice-president of the National Union of Mineworkers Yorkshire Area
With solidarity coming in from across Britain and the world, PETER LAZENBY speaks to the people who made Christmas 1984 a celebration of working-class resistance in Britain’s striking coalmining communities