Labour prospects in May elections may be irrevocably damaged by Birmingham Council’s costly refusal to settle the year-long dispute, warns STEVE WRIGHT
Democracy: the writing on the road
Forget the shenanigans about Tory Party partying, something far more insidious is taking place — something eating away at the foundations of British democracy — and socialised distraction is just a cover for doing so, warns ALAN SIMPSON
Insulate Britain climate activists take part in a demonstration on Vauxhall Bridge in central London
HENRY FOWLER and ROB POOLE explain the significance of today’s Megapicket
One hundred years after 1.7m workers shut the country down in defence of the miners, the struggles that sparked the 1926 General Strike are still with us – and will be honoured on London’s May Day march this year, writes MARY ADOSSIDES
The Labour Growth Group and its think tank partner, the Good Growth Foundation, have taken funding from major lobbying firms linked to housebuilders, banks and Heathrow – raising questions about corporate influence at the heart of Starmer’s pro-growth project. SOLOMON HUGHES reports
The fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a registered nurse and union member, has sparked nationwide protests and renewed calls from National Nurses United to dismantle Ice and related agencies, says MARK GRUENBERG
A Vatican photo-op, a hard-right donor and a rhetoric of mass deportations reveal how appeals to ‘Christian values’ are being reshaped by Reform and Tory MPs, says SOLOMON HUGHES
AS Boris Johnson knows all too well, insecurity is the handmaiden of authoritarianism. Create it and you erode public confidence in an array of democratic rights painfully fought for over centuries.
So it is now. Under the cloak of Covid insecurity, Brexit cock-up, climate crises and supply bottlenecks, Johnson’s government is rolling back the frontiers of democracy at an alarming rate. The libertarian right rails against having to wear masks on public transport and in shops, but says nothing about greater liberties they would gleefully remove in the grotesque Policing Bill.
The press seem happy to aid and abet this process, more enthusiastically chasing stories about the anti-mask “party” antics rather than anti-democratic ones. There is, however, an important link between the two. It is the conflict between the politics of individualism and collectivism; encapsulated, paradoxically, by the brothers Corbyn.
Similar stories
As the dollar falters and US power turns predatory, Britain and Europe must abandon transatlantic illusions and build a collectivist alternative before the system implodes, writes ALAN SIMPSON
The collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation poses an existential threat — but do today’s politicians have the capacity to deliver the more resilient and sustainable economics of tomorrow, wonders ALAN SIMPSON
ALAN SIMPSON warns of a dystopian crossroads where Trump’s wrecking ball meets AI-driven alienation, and argues only a Green New Deal can repair our fractured society before techno-feudalism consumes us all
As the ‘NRx movement’ plots to replace democracy with corporate-feudal dictatorship, Britain must pursue a radical alternative of local food security and genuine wealth redistribution to withstand the coming upheaval, writes ALAN SIMPSON