We face austerity, privatisation, and toxic influence. But we are growing, and cannot be beaten
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Class, history and geography in the general election
KEITH FLETT offers some historical context to the election campaign’s final period
Leaders debate
Trump’s economic adviser has exposed the actual strategy: forcing other countries to provide financial support for US world hegemony
Activist Angie Zelter has been arrested more than a hundred times. She’s not stopping now, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Natalia Marques looks at last week's ruling that Khalil can be deported and its implications
We are not here to advocate for the arms industry or its CEOs, writes STEVE HANDFORD, and that means we must take a stand against the government’s spending on war
Educators must fight for an inclusive, creative system that values all children
Although our sector is hearing better things from the current government, the recognition that what we do is education in its own right, rather than just childcare, is still not reflected in policy, writes LUCY COLEMAN
A FOOTNOTE that the socialist historian EP Thompson made to his A Psessay in Ephology about the 1959 general election, though over 60 years old, does seem to capture quite well the relation between the media, leaders debate and opinion polls currently: “A psephologist is a man employed by the mass media to research into what people think the mass media has told them to think. An ephologist is a man employed by the Observer or BBC to interpret the results of psephology and who makes an ephing good thing out of it.”
Polling outfit Ipsos has published an MRP poll which shows the current break down of support in each constituency. For those who want the Tories out its good news. There is a Labour landslide coming with even hard-right figures like Robert Jenrick, Suella Braverman and Liz Truss not safe.
The headlines generated by such polls often come with brief if unexplained historical references. For example, the Tories are set to win fewer seats than at any election for over 100 years.
Meanwhile the projected Labour majority could be one of the largest the party has ever achieved. Sir Keir Starmer goes on constantly about his changed Labour Party but it is not a new approach. Very similar wording was used by Tony Blair in 1997. By “change” of course he means that he has purged much of the left from Labour. Purging voters is more difficult.
More from this author
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
Starmer’s slash-and-burn approach to disability benefits represents a fundamental break with Labour’s founding mission to challenge the idle rich rather than punish the vulnerable poor, argues KEITH FLETT
The formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 marked the beginning of interconnected and contested strategies — parliamentary and industrial — seeking ways to advance working-class interests, writes KEITH FLETT
