While slashing welfare and public services, Labour’s spring statement delivers a bonanza for death-dealing bomb merchants. We now see the true and terrible face of austerity 2.0, writes MICHAEL BURKE
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Charlie Hutchison, an anti-fascist icon
DAVID HORSLEY honours the black British communist who fought the fascists from Cable Street, to Spain, to the concentration camps of Nazi Germany
Detailing the deluge of delusion and dishonesty pushed by the pro-war camp, IAN SINCLAIR identifies four key tactics corporate journalists use to confuse audiences and suppress opposition to the proxy war in the east
From ‘moral duty’ to ‘military Keynesianism,’ Labour manipulates language to justify slashing welfare but pouring billions into warfare, condemning communities like Glasgow South West to deeper poverty, writes MATT KERR
With politicians dismissing constituents’ fears of global war, the peace movement must look beyond Parliament to prevent catastrophe, writes TOM MORRISON
The mass movement supporting Palestine represents potential political power that the left must now embrace as central to its strategy, writes HUGH LANNING, ahead of this Saturday’s Socialism or Barbarism day school in London
Health Secretary Wes Streeting taking £53k from Tory-linked recruiter and outsourcer Peter Hearn’s OPD Group is a great example of how Labour’s rich donors shape policies targeting the poor – not their wealth, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
MAT COWARD recalls the communist and pacifist aristocrat whose commitment made a difference in the Spanish civil war, the Blitz and WWII Europe
IN April 1945, British troops liberated the Belsen concentration camp. What they witnessed there stayed with them for life. They saw 60,000 survivors of the Nazi death camp, all seriously ill and starving, and 13,000 unburied corpses laying on the ground.
One of those troops was a 27-year-old black soldier from Oxfordshire, Charlie Hutchison. What was unique about him was that the sight of the horrifying death camp he saw in Belsen was the culmination of nine years he had been physically fighting that evil ideology: from Cable Street in 1936 to that day in 1945, Hutchison had dedicated his life to the struggle against racism and fascism.
Born on May 10 1918 in Oxfordshire, his mother was a local woman and his father came from the Gold Coast, now Ghana. The latter spent much time travelling back to Africa, and after one journey, did not return, which left Hutchison’s mother in financial hardship as well as mental anguish.
Under duress, she arranged for him and his sister to be taken temporarily into the care of the National Children’s Home and Orphanage in Harpenden. Unfortunately for the mother and children, this temporary stay went on for years, with her unable to take the two back into her care.
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DAVID HORSLEY points to the continued relevance of an inspirational black communist whose 110th birthday anniversary will be celebrated on Sunday
DAVID HORSLEY recalls the dedication and activism of dedicated communist militant Win Langton
DAVID HORSLEY pays tribute to a remarkable anti-racist communist campaigner, born 91 years ago this month
DAVID HORSLEY recalls the militant origins of the Notting Hill Carnival which takes place this weekend
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