ALEX HALL recommends an exhaustive investigation of the means by which the Starmer faction assassinated the left
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Hope lies with the grassroots
GAVIN O’TOOLE applauds a timely reminder of a past victory, and its clear message that leadership is not to be found among the Labour right
More than 300 protesters demonstrate against the poll tax outside the magistrates' court in Warrington, Cheshire where the first of 5,000 people charged with non-payment of the tax was appearing.
DAVID MORGAN recommends a refreshingly inspiring novel that features encounters with some tremendous women
BOB NEWLAND recommends a political thriller from former anti-apartheid activist Peter Hain
JAMES WALSH speaks to Chris Thorpe-Tracey - among many things, a one-time Morning Star columnist — about songs, cities, politics and prophecy
New releases from Max Richter, Julius Asal, and Jean-Michel Jarre
RON JACOBS applauds a reading of black history in the US that plots the path from autonomy to self-governance and then liberation
Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay: A Short History of the Anti-Poll Tax Struggle 1987–1993
Chris Robinson, Thinkwell Books, £10
A LESSON for the Labour leadership lurks at the moral core of this timely history of the poll tax and the juggernaut of rebellion against it by working people.
Chris Robinson’s book reminds today’s leaders — and the wider labour movement — that the unjust, cynical “community charge” as it was euphemistically called was defeated on the streets, in parlours and in pubs, and not in Parliament.
The abject failure of the then Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, and his party’s cowardly siege of its own left wing in the miserably deluded hope that this would reward them at the ballot box comes across on every page.
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