Netanyahu’s failed attempt to replace Shin Bet’s chief violates longstanding Israeli political taboos, as the apartheid state’s internal power struggle spirals to a new level of crisis while Gaza burns, writes RAMZY BAROUD
Banned but unbowed – how the Daily Worker was suppressed 80 years ago
PHIL KATZ relates how the Morning Star’s forerunner was banned and the massive struggle to restore press freedom to unban the people’s paper

WITH media bans very much in the public eye at the moment, few can be better qualified to express a view than the Morning Star, whose forerunner, the Daily Worker, experienced a decade-long struggle with censors, libel suits, grizzly judges — one was described in the paper as a “bewigged puppet” — and eventually, an outright ban.
Today, January 21, is the anniversary of one such anti-democratic measure, and certainly the most serious.
The owners and editorial staff of the paper had seen it coming and made meticulous plans, which included legal and illegal printing, the establishment of powerful support leagues made up of factory workers and readers and even a High Court challenge. The challenge was successful, but the ban stayed in place.
More from this author

From anti-apartheid work to uniting migrant workers, Sutton showed us how to build worker power, keeping socialism’s flame burning bright, and leaving London’s mighty May Day parade as his legacy, writes Phil Katz

In the last of a three-part series, PHIL KATZ explains how unions are best placed to present a positive, pro-worker, pro-public services alternative to the narrative of division, deregulation and greed peddled by Farage’s party

In the second of a three-part analysis, PHIL KATZ looks at areas where the labour movement should be able to demolish the new right-wing upstart party: its economic policies and attitude to the welfare state

Farage's party is a political machine deeply tied to the interests of US big business, writes PHIL KATZ in the first of a series of features on this growing force in British politics