While slashing welfare and public services, Labour’s spring statement delivers a bonanza for death-dealing bomb merchants. We now see the true and terrible face of austerity 2.0, writes MICHAEL BURKE
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Please, Sir, can we have some more?
Falling short of what was promised: many of the new rights in the Employment Rights Bill have defects or escape loopholes that all need addressing, writes LORD JOHN HENDY KC
Detailing the deluge of delusion and dishonesty pushed by the pro-war camp, IAN SINCLAIR identifies four key tactics corporate journalists use to confuse audiences and suppress opposition to the proxy war in the east
From ‘moral duty’ to ‘military Keynesianism,’ Labour manipulates language to justify slashing welfare but pouring billions into warfare, condemning communities like Glasgow South West to deeper poverty, writes MATT KERR
With politicians dismissing constituents’ fears of global war, the peace movement must look beyond Parliament to prevent catastrophe, writes TOM MORRISON
The mass movement supporting Palestine represents potential political power that the left must now embrace as central to its strategy, writes HUGH LANNING, ahead of this Saturday’s Socialism or Barbarism day school in London
Health Secretary Wes Streeting taking £53k from Tory-linked recruiter and outsourcer Peter Hearn’s OPD Group is a great example of how Labour’s rich donors shape policies targeting the poor – not their wealth, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
MAT COWARD recalls the communist and pacifist aristocrat whose commitment made a difference in the Spanish civil war, the Blitz and WWII Europe
THE Employment Rights Bill begins its passage through the House of Lords today. At 300 pages in length, spiced up by 250 government amendments in the Commons, it remains thin gruel, leaving trade unions, like Oliver Twist, asking for more — in the shape of a second industrial relations Bill during this parliament.
The Bill is a long way short of the full (but hardly gastronomic) menu in Labour’s green paper, A New Deal for Working People, drafted by a committee composed mostly of trade union leaders under Andy McDonald MP and adopted by Labour conference in 2021, reaffirmed in 2022, and loudly proclaimed by the leader and deputy leader on many occasions since.
Of course, the hunger for more does not detract from the gratitude the movement feels at a Bill of fare which will remove the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2024, and most (but not all) of the Trade Union Act 2016 — and do a lot more besides. But restaurant critics are surely entitled to judge the meal on how it measures up to the menu on the door rather than compare it to the starvation rations offered by the previous management.
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The Star publishes the Karl Marx Graveside Oration delivered by Lord JOHN HENDY KC at Highgate Cemetery on Sunday, on behalf of the Marx Memorial Library
LORD JOHN HENDY KC explains how the events of ’84-5 were an ideological assault unleashed on the working class in revenge for gains of the ’70s
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It’s the steady erosion of collective bargaining over a number of years that has led workers’ pay to fall, while employers’ profits continue to rise, says LORD JOHN HENDY QC in the first of a two-part article series
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The Employment Rights Bill is a vital opportunity to rebalance power between workers and employers. As it passes to the Lords, pressure must be brought to bear to strengthen this key legislation, argues ANDY McDONALD MP
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