ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
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ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends a brilliant collection of poems written to accompany stunning images of the Miners’ strike
SOWING DISCORD: A Leicester miner with a placard reflecting the media/Thatcher narrative (not in the book)
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
Strike
Sarah Wimbush
Stairwell books £15
EVERYTHING the NUM predicted on its badges and posters during 1984-5 did come true.
There is no British coal industry left, not even in Nottingham. Youth unemployment in the former coalfields rocketed and has still not come down just as many former miners never worked again, spending their non-working years claiming dole not coal, which remained a cheap import from Poland.
What used to be called the working class are now the working poor and the absolutely skint.
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ALISTAIR FINDLAY welcomes a fine collection of football poems that celebrate a generational shift in both the sport and the culture
ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends the first representative selection in English of the poetry of the Soviet war correspondent Ilya Ehrenburg
