Without energy and without a strategic partner, Cuba is currently fighting for its survival. While the population is literally sitting in the dark, the Trump administration is trying to definitively break the socialist project through economic blackmail. What lies ahead for the island, asks MARC VANDEPITTE
Homes for the people
STEWART McGILL introduces a major event on the issue of housing, hosted by the Morning Star
A housing estate in Bristol
A setback for IG Metall at Tesla’s Berlin plant has ignited claims of intimidation and raised fears for the future of collective bargaining and workplace democracy, says TONY BURKE
The question for the media, in the US and across the globe, says ROGER McKENZIE, is will they do their job fearlessly and call Donald Trump out?
A recent Financial Times column on the Iran war exemplifies how the Western elite worldview is more concerned with strategy and power than legality or human life, writes ANDREW MURRAY
STEVE BISHOP considers the prospects for a settlement of the conflict and how the demands of both sides are being viewed
The PM is drawing cautious distance from Donald Trump over Iran – but history suggests Britain’s support may run deeper than it appears, just as it did during the Vietnam war, says KEITH FLETT
IN 1979 over 40 per cent of the population lived in council and other social housing. Less than 10 per cent were living in private rented housing; owner-occupiers accounted for just over half of households in the country.
There was no housing crisis in 1979. Today less than 6 per cent of people live in council homes and we have a serious crisis that for many has become an emergency. Lorraine Douglas, convenor of the Communist Party’s Housing Commission, explains.
“Around two million council homes have been sold since the introduction of the Right to Buy in 1981. Around 40 per cent of these homes are now in the hands of buy-to-let landlords, charging up to three times the council rent for the same properties.
“The Tories’ claim to be the party of home ownership when an entire generation has been all but locked out of owning their own home, with no prospect of getting an affordable place to rent from their local council or housing association, has been exposed for the canard it always was.”
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Building is the solution for much of our housing crisis – and will also help to address poverty, ill health, and even anti-social behaviour and alienation, writes KENNY MacASKILL
CAROL WILCOX argues for the proper implementation of the land value tax, which could see unused plots sold off and landlords priced out of landlordism, potentially resolving the housing and planning crises
Our housing crisis isn’t an accident – it’s class war, trapping millions in poverty while landlords and billionaires profit. To solve it, we need comprehensive transformation, not mere tokenistic reform, writes BECK ROBERTSON