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
Latest editorial
Glass half empty? How water privatisation in England is continuing to fail citizens
Part of dealing with vast problems such as climate change and the new weather patterns it brings is making public decisions about the future, argue ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and JOEL HELLEWELL
Dry cracked earth at Baitings Reservoir in Ripponden, West Yorkshire, where water levels are significantly low.
As Labour mimics Tory welfare cuts while ignoring crumbling schools, educators must collectively resist the government's priorities and fight for an inclusive, creative system that values all children, writes NEU president SARAH KILPATRICK
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
Once able to defy a US president before Congress, Netanyahu now finds himself weakened by military setbacks and facing a populist Trump who may yet put ‘America first’ instead of Israel, writes RAMZY BAROUD
RON BROWN makes the case for the Morning Star as the daily paper of all trade unionists, and especially education workers who have seen it cover their issues and their actions, day in, day out
Without due process, hundreds of Venezuelans living in the US have been arrested, slandered as terroristic criminals and sent flown in chains to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison under an obscure 18th-century law, reports JOHN PERRY
The NEU’s annual conference promises heated debate, with motions on international politics, curriculum reform and union amalgamation likely to provoke strong reactions and challenge the status quo, writes Education for Tomorrow editor ROBERT POOLE
IT’S easy to forget the complex system by which water ends up coming out of our taps.
Towards the end of Ulysses by James Joyce, Stephen Daedalus and Leopold Bloom have just finished a lengthy drinking session, and have returned to Bloom’s house.
Bloom fills an iron kettle with water from the tap in order to prepare cocoa. Joyce describes in exacting detail the causal chain that delivers water into Bloom’s kettle: all the way from the 2,400 million gallons of “Roundwood reservoir,” through a “subterranean aqueduct of filter mains” constructed at a cost of “£5 per linear yard” and eventually through a system of “relieving tanks” down into Dublin.
By including this lengthy description — over 200 words long — Joyce emphasises the communality of even the intimate, personal act of filling a kettle.
Society contains millions of superficially isolated personal decisions: a late-night cup of cocoa. But Joyce knew that by including the wider perspective, he could demonstrate that these small acts in fact rested on vast networks of co-operative endeavours.
More from this author
A small Japanese trial has reported some positive results for stem cell therapy to treat spinal-cord injuries
Man-made canals like Panama and Suez face unprecedented challenges from extreme weather patterns and geopolitical tensions that reveal the fragility of our global trade networks, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
It’s sunny times for the solar industry which is expected to continue to grow rapidly — but there are still major environmental issues with how solar cells are made, explain ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
Fraud in Alzheimer’s research raises difficult questions about the current state of science, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT