Labour prospects in May elections may be irrevocably damaged by Birmingham Council’s costly refusal to settle the year-long dispute, warns STEVE WRIGHT
Isabel Crook: an appreciation
JENNY CLEGG pays tribute to a remarkable woman who was a pioneer in bringing about greater understanding between China and the West
Isabel Crook in 1940
HENRY FOWLER and ROB POOLE explain the significance of today’s Megapicket
One hundred years after 1.7m workers shut the country down in defence of the miners, the struggles that sparked the 1926 General Strike are still with us – and will be honoured on London’s May Day march this year, writes MARY ADOSSIDES
The Labour Growth Group and its think tank partner, the Good Growth Foundation, have taken funding from major lobbying firms linked to housebuilders, banks and Heathrow – raising questions about corporate influence at the heart of Starmer’s pro-growth project. SOLOMON HUGHES reports
The fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a registered nurse and union member, has sparked nationwide protests and renewed calls from National Nurses United to dismantle Ice and related agencies, says MARK GRUENBERG
A Vatican photo-op, a hard-right donor and a rhetoric of mass deportations reveal how appeals to ‘Christian values’ are being reshaped by Reform and Tory MPs, says SOLOMON HUGHES
ISABEL CROOK (1915-2023) was a pioneering anthropologist, committed communist and rare bridge between the West and China. She was renowned, with husband David, for the study Ten Mile Inn: Mass Movement in a Chinese Village, an invaluable record of the Communist Party of China’s mass line in action.
Isabel spent most of her life in China and was to witness its remarkable transformation from a war-torn land of beggars, bandits and people in rags under a corrupt Kuomintang (KMT) government to a country set on a path to prosperity, overcoming the problems of poverty, unemployment and instability, under communist leadership.
During the Cultural Revolution, she was kept in confinement by Red Guards for three years, receiving an apology from Zhou Enlai in 1973. In 1989, with David, she called on the government not to use force against the Tiananmen protesters. Isabel nevertheless was to remain optimistic about China’s future under CPC leadership.
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JENNY CLEGG reports from a Chinese peace conference bringing together defence ministers, US think tanks and global South leaders, where speakers warned that the erosion of multilateralism risks regional hotspots exploding into wider war