While riding the No 3 bus in Glasgow MATT KERR has ample time to dissect the moribund Scottish Labour decline into near oblivion and watch intriguing bus passenger dynamics
READING and Rebellion, an anthology of radical writing for children compiled by Kimberley Reynolds, Jane Rosen and Michael Rosen is, the latter says: “The first attempt to try to recapture both the publications, in many forms, and a sense of what it was like to read, sing or perform them.”
And what many and various forms they are and what lives they reflect and touched.
As might be expected, the Communist Party is a key player — Rosen (M) again: “One of my favourite (childhood) books was A White Sail Gleams by Russian writer Valentin Katayev. How did an English child living in a flat over a shop in the London suburbs come to be reading this Russian book? The answer at one level is simple, my parents were members of the British Communist Party.”
TONY FOX reports from a commemoration of the legendary Battle of Jarama in which four Stockton-on-Tees volunteers fell
Hundreds in Berlin gathered on January 15 to honour the US-born socialist who made East Germany his home. Florentine Morales Sandoval reports
As the anti-fascist movement mourns the death of Gerry Gable, his long-time comrade and former Searchlight editor STEVE SILVER reflects on the life of an indispensable activist who spent six decades infiltrating, exposing and undermining fascism
On January 2 2014, PJ Harvey used her turn as guest editor of the Today programme to expose the realities of war, arms dealing and media complicity. The fury that followed showed how rare – and how threatening – such honesty is within Britain’s most Establishment broadcaster, says IAN SINCLAIR



