Labour’s cynical recruitment drive normalises militarism, diverts attention from youth unemployment and public service cuts, and seeks to build consent for an increasingly aggressive defence agenda, argues GEORGINA ANDREWS
Latest editorial
‘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
JULIA BARD looks at the persistence of anti-semitism on the political right – and its troubling emergence on parts of the left, too
As unemployment rises and living standards fall, May’s economic announcement risks locking Britain into further decline rather than charting a new course, warns JON TRICKETT MP
Despite systemic racism and far-right hostility, Britain’s migrant and black communities continue to contribute, inspire, and resist. Through education, art, and intergenerational solidarity, the next generation can help shape a future rooted in justice, understanding, and hope, says ZITA HOLBOURNE
Campaigns against nuclear weapons on the Clyde, financial backing for arms firms and rising militarism are converging with solidarity for Palestine, as Scotland’s peace movement builds momentum ahead of the 2026 Holyrood election, says ARTHUR WEST
A US air strike in north-west Nigeria, publicly framed as a Christmas act of counterterrorism, reveals a deeper shift in how power is exercised in Africa, argues RAIS NEZA BONEZA
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.
Similar stories
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
In the first of four extracts from her new memoir, former NUM headquarters staff HILARY CAVE recalls challenging police intimidation during the miners’ strike, exposing how the full machinery of state was deployed against the working class
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