State machinery was widely employed to secure favourable outcomes in India’s recent regional elections against three progressive regional governments who dared to challenge Narendra Modi, asserts VIJAY PRASHAD
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Nothing left to Gove
Tory Environment Secretary Michael Gove
It is too early to assume a US defeat in Iran — we must prepare for a long anti-war struggle, argues JOHN ROSS
ROGER McKENZIE says the ANC needs to respect South Africa’s Communists and their decision to stand independently at elections
KENNY MacASKILL remembers the woman who first translated The Communist Manifesto into English
The election offers a critical chance to shape the future of pay, care and community provision in Wales, says Unison’s JESS TURNER
As Scotland heads to the polls, the main parties offer variations on the same script, says MATT KERR
OUR political system is stuffed with odd conventions. Many, like the much-abused pairing system of excusing MPs from votes — which this week forced Labour’s Tulip Siddiq to postpone a Caesarean section — deserve to be consigned to the dustbin of history.
One that should survive, though, is the practice that closing speeches in votes of confidence are given not by party leaders, but by their seconds in command.
It allows us to see normally overshadowed figures as if they were the centrepiece, with a dash of hope or warning.
When the Labour government fell in 1979, Michael Foot, then deputy Labour leader and Lord President of the Council, delivered one of the finest orations in British parliamentary history.
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