Latest editorial
Police seize an XR protester at the weekend
THE government has been hit with a media censorship warning amid reports it is seeking to criminalise Extinction Rebellion (XR) for the group’s “attack on free press.”
Last week, the Ministry of Justice was issued a “media freedom alert” by the Council for Europe after its press officers blacklisted investigative journalists at Declassified UK.
The council, which monitors democracy in Europe, described the act as having a “chilling effect on media freedom.”
Forty years on, TONY DUBBINS revisits the Wapping dispute to argue that Murdoch’s real aim was union-busting – enabled by Thatcherite laws, police violence, compliant unions and a complicit media
![[Pic: Andrew Wiard]](https://msd11.gn.apc.org/sites/default/files/styles/desktop/public/2026-01/19860503_a_wiard_0003.jpg.webp?itok=mR5zV0nE)
The once beating heart of British journalism was undone by technological change, union battles and Murdoch’s 1986 Wapping coup – leaving London the only major capital without a press club, says TIM GOPSILL
Enduring myths blame print unions for their own destruction – but TONY BURKE argues that the Wapping dispute was a calculated assault by Murdoch on organised labour, which reshaped Britain’s media landscape and casts a long shadow over trade union rights today
