A vast US war fleet deployed in the south Caribbean — ostensibly to fight drug-trafficking but widely seen as a push for violent regime change — has sparked international condemnation and bipartisan resistance in the US itself. FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ reports
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Public-sector pay is an issue for us all
For its own good the Labour government should take a radical, progressive approach to investing in public services instead of tinkering around the edges, argues DIANE ABBOTT
FAIR PAY: Health workers march to Downing Street, London
ANSELM ELDERGILL recalls the misjudgments, mishaps and moments of farce that shaped his years in legal practice
MAT COWARD tells how 18th-century scholar and revolutionary democrat Joseph Ritson turned a medieval outlaw into England’s people’s hero — soon to be gracing panto halls around the nation
The Communist Party of Britain’s Congress last month debated a resolution on ending opposition to all nuclear power in light of technological advances and the climate crisis. RICHARD HEBBERT explains why
Amid the festive lights, Scotland faces a stark holiday truth: only real investment in public services and the workers who sustain them can lift communities out of poverty, argues LILIAN MACER
Behind the cute names of Scotland’s road gritters lies a workforce underpaid and overlooked – a fitting reflection of a Budget that protected profits, bungled its rollout and offered hardly a glimmer of hope, writes MATT KERR
THE struggle over the level of public-sector pay rises for 2025 has already begun. Because of its impact on general pay increases, the outcome will be of direct interest to all workers.
In addition, because of the multiple crises in public services, wider society has an interest in a level of pay that improves the deteriorating record in recruitment and retention in key parts of the public sector.
As a result, the outcome of this struggle will have serious consequences for the entire working class and the poor. There is also the possibility, or even the likelihood, that this will be a multi-year struggle as the government’s own budget suggests that ministers’ aim will be continuous belt-tightening over the lifetime of this parliament.
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Public and Commercial Services union leader FRAN HEATHCOTE warns the Chancellor not to take an axe to the Civil Service – and points to measures that would genuinely improve the public sector
