MARIA DUARTE picks the best and worst of a crowded year of films
Always Red – an incisive political memoir with lessons for the whole left
Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO finds much to recommend the autobiography of former Unite leader Len McCluskey
Len McCluskey, former general secretary of Unite, applauds during the 2019 Labour Party Conference at the Brighton Centre in Brighton
STEVE JOHNSON picks his favourites from the many memorable albums of the year, and one stunning new festival
SIMON DUFF picks his favourites, from radical African-inspired electronic rhythms to improvisations on the organ
For GORDON PARSONS, a dramatic exploration of the abuse of young men at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre trumps Beckett, a couple of Hamlets and a bracing Candide
From feminist manifestos to exiled lovers to mythic islands, LEO BOIX selects the best fiction, poetry and non-fiction
FIONA O’CONNOR picks books and films that show defiance in the face of violence and injustice
LEN McCLUSKEY’S autobiography Always Red has been trailed in the press as an attack on the new Labour leadership of Keir Starmer.
Many reviews have been hostile to its politics: but this will hardly surprise McCluskey, who has both been the victim of scurrilous media mistreatment and the witness to the concerted character assassination campaign launched across the mainstream media against Jeremy Corbyn for five years.
As he himself notes, “the British press, dominated by billionaire-owned, right-wing, Conservative-supporting newspapers, sets a narrative that treats all strikes as bad and almost all bosses as plucky entrepreneurs.
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