TUC president and POA leader STEVE GILLAN speaks to Ben Chacko on the eve of Congress 2026
JUNE 2021 marks the 40th anniversary of the release of the Specials single Ghost Town. It went on to spend three weeks at Number One in the charts in the summer of 1981.
Recorded in Leamington Spa and produced in Tottenham, the single is now part of social history capturing the disaffection and impact of the first years of the 1979 Thatcher government.
It has been re-released to mark the anniversary but its significance goes far wider than the music charts. It speaks to an experience of particularly younger people under a Tory government that is not so different in 2020 despite the passage of four decades.
The Bard hands out medals for his Edinburgh campaign and urges us to support The Men They Couldn’t Hang
KEITH FLETT looks at geographical roots of working-class activism in Britain
NICK MATTHEWS recalls how the ideals of socialism and the holding of goods in common have an older provenance than you might think


