MORNING STAR shareholders saluted assistant business manager Bernadette Keaveney at its AGM on Saturday as she marked 21 years to the day since starting work for the paper.

Ms Keaveney received a standing ovation as she was presented with a cake and thanks from the management committee of the People’s Press Printing Society (PPPS), the readers’ co-op that publishes the Morning Star.

PPPS chair Bob Oram paid tribute to Ms Keaveney for her tireless work to boost the paper’s circulation and engage with readers, supporters, trade unions and the trade to get the “daily miracle” into the shops, at demonstrations and to conferences, while tributes also poured in online for “a star of the Morning Star” team.

Shareholders gathered for the paper’s first AGM since 2019, with last year’s meeting having been cancelled because of the pandemic. Unlike the usual four or five-stop tour of the country to make sectional AGM meetings as accessible as possible to readers in different parts of Britain, this year a single meeting was held in Birmingham because of ongoing concerns around virus spread.

The AGM debated changes in the political situation with the right-wing takeover in Labour and the need for the Morning Star to play a role as a platform and agitator for the left movement. 

Shareholders voted to reaffirm its editorial line being rooted in Britain’s Road to Socialism, to build on fundraising offers from the Welsh labour movement to secure sufficient funds for a part-time Wales reporter reflecting the significance of coverage of Britain’s only remaining Labour government, and to challenge propaganda aimed at demonising socialist countries and whipping up a new cold war. They also endorsed a modernised set of rules for the Society.