YANA PETTICREW explains what’s behind the strike and how the entire sector rests on super-exploiting an unorganised workforce
The left will only meet the challenge of Covid-19 if it learns the right lessons from recent defeats
BILL KIDD MSP says increasing Britain’s nuclear arsenal at this time is dangerous and expensive folly
ROGER McKENZIE asks whether the US’s shift to targeting everyone at once will instil greater co-operation among rising powers
ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the government’s proposals to further limit the right of citizens to trial by jury
As we mark the anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, JOHN WIGHT reflects on the enormity of the US decision to drop the atom bombs
DIANE ABBOTT explodes the anti-migrant myths perpetrated by cynical politicians and an irresponsible mass media
THE devastating reality of the coronavirus pandemic has inspired demands that we don’t settle for a return to “normal” afterwards but build a better future.
The British state has been particularly ineffective in containing infections and deaths, both because of political blunders but also down to years of cuts, a marketised public service model which is inept at responding to emergencies and wilful irresponsibility by Conservative governments — infamously ignoring the findings of 2016’s pandemic drill Exercise Cygnus, for example.
Socialists have long-standing criticisms of these policies and calls for big increases in public spending and a return to straightforward public ownership and control of services including the NHS but also transport, communications and supply, utilities and so on were popular before this crisis and will be amplified by it.
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Ben Chacko talks to RMT leader EDDIE DEMPSEY about how the key to fixing broken Britain lies in collective sectoral bargaining, restoring unions’ ability to take solidarity strike action and bringing about the much-vaunted ‘wave of insourcing’
