RAMZY BAROUD on how Israel’s narrative collides with military failure
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The Cato Street 205th anniversary – an alternative tradition of protest
The legacy of an 1820 conspiracy in revenge for Peterloo resonates down the ages, argues KEITH FLETT
A cartoon depiction of the arrest of the Cato Street Conspirators
ROGER McKENZIE explains how Ibrahim Traore has sparked the flames of hope across Africa, while the Western powers seek to extinguish all attempts to build true sovereignty in the long-exploited continent
DANIEL GOVER considers the procedural complexities awaiting a Private Member’s Bill in its passage through Commons and Lords
JAMIE TUCKNUTT reports on an initiative that brings together two epochs of the city’s anti-fascist struggles
Just as German Social Democrats joined the Nazis in singing Deutschland Uber Alles, ANDREW MURRAY observes how Starmer tries to out-Farage Farage with anti-migrant policies — but evidence shows Reform voters come from Tories, not Labour, making this ploy morally bankrupt and politically pointless
KEITH FLETT traces how the ‘world’s most successful political party’ has imploded since Thatcher’s fall, from nine leaders in 30 years to losing all 16 English councils, with Reform UK symbolically capturing Peel’s birthplace, Tamworth — but the beast is not dead yet
With turnout plummeting and faith in Parliament collapsing, BERT SCHOUWENBURG explains how radical local government reform — including devolved taxation and removal of party politics from town halls — could restore power to communities currently ignored by profit-obsessed MPs
IT IS 205 years since the Cato Street conspiracy was “uncovered” on February 23 1820 and the leaders duly despatched at the scaffold or to Australia.
It warrants a section in EP Thompson’s classic account of the Making of the English Working Class (1963) but until recently has been largely overlooked both by mainstream and left historians.
The conspirators, who, like others before them, had been infiltrated by government spies — a reminder that spycops are nothing new — planned to attack a “Cabinet dinner” in central London, murder the prime minister, home secretary etc and display their heads on poles.
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KEITH FLETT traces how the ‘world’s most successful political party’ has imploded since Thatcher’s fall, from nine leaders in 30 years to losing all 16 English councils, with Reform UK symbolically capturing Peel’s birthplace, Tamworth — but the beast is not dead yet
KEITH FLETT revisits the 1978 origins of Britain’s May Day bank holiday — from Michael Foot’s triumph to Thatcher’s reluctant acceptance — as Starmer’s government dodges calls to expand our working-class celebrations
From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT
Facing economic turmoil, Jim Callaghan’s government rejected Tony Benn’s alternative economic strategy in favour of cuts that paved the way for Thatcherism — and the cuts-loving Labour of the present era, writes KEITH FLETT
