From Chartists and Suffragettes to Irish republicans and today’s Palestine activists, the treatment of hunger strikers exposes a consistent pattern in how the British state represses those it deems political prisoners, says KEITH FLETT
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An opportunity for left advance?
ANDREW MURRAY wonders whether recent opinion polling and a fresh local authority by-election result in Ilford are an indication that the time is ripe for the left to make inroads
Clothing showing an image of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer worn by a Reform UK party supporter during the Reform UK local election launch rally at Birmingham Arena, in Birmingham, March 28, 2025
In the aftermath of the illegal US operation against Venezuela, a deliberate misinformation campaign has been waged to sow doubt about the survival of the country’s revolution, warns MANOLO DE LOS SANTOS
A statement from the Parti Communiste Francais
ANSELM ELDERGILL examines our laws concerning the treatment of animals and their rights
THE Committee for the Defence of Iranian People’s Rights (Codir) welcomes demonstrations across Iran, which have put pressure upon the theocratic dictatorship, but warns against intervention by the United States to force Iran in a particular direction
In a stark warning of things to come JOHN ELLISON invokes the ideological splitting of hairs that weakened any and all opposition to the unravelling WWI when 22 million of mostly Europeans lost their lives and 23 million were maimed
ARE WE near a tipping point? Elected not nine months ago with a huge parliamentary majority the Labour government already has the air of the sepulchre about it.
The planned savage cuts in disability benefits, driven solely by the desire to save money and thus propitiate the bond market whatever moral posturing about work accompanied Liz Kendall’s announcement, have alarmed parts of the Labour benches other outrages did not reach.
So far at least 25 Labour MPs — plus the three who remain suspended from the whip — have indicated that they will vote against the move when it comes up in the Commons. Not enough to stop them going through, but enough to provoke a crisis.
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The Tories’ trouble is rooted in the British capitalist Establishment now being more disoriented and uncertain of its social mission than before, argues ANDREW MURRAY
DIANE ABBOTT looks at the whys and hows of Labour’s spectacular own goal