With attacks on industry, healthcare and education intensifying, JAMSHID AHMADI warns of a deliberate drive to cripple Iran and calls for urgent global action
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Recognising that art and culture are of benefit to all
Artists are frequently first in line when it comes to cuts, but society as a whole is left all the poorer – it’s time they were properly valued, says ZITA HOLBOURNE of Artists Union England
Argentinians commemorated the 50th anniversary of the military dictatorship that left 30,000 people killed or ‘disappeared.’ BERT SCHOUWENBURG reports
In Voices of Scotland YANA PETTICREW looks at the crippling deterioration of working-class art provision and support
As weapons return to Suffolk and defence spending soars, London CND is pressing local candidates to oppose nuclear expansion and support the UN ban treaty. SALLY SPIERS explains
One hundred years on from Britain’s only general strike, socialists will gather in London at the Morning Star’s annual conference to discuss how organised labour can once again become the engine of radical change. Editor BEN CHACKO encourages readers to come along and join the debate
In the year following Peterloo a mass strike erupted into armed revolt as Scotland’s workers demanded their rights, yet this uprising remains largely absent from popular history, writes KENNY MacASKILL
ARTISTS Union England (AUE) has tabled a motion on the value of arts for this year’s TUC Congress. Creative arts benefit society every day, whether bringing joy, exploring history, promoting social justice, equality, healing and well-being, lifting spirits or providing education and therapy. But all too often these things are taken for granted and that includes the artist workers who create art and deliver art programmes.
Artists experience low pay, unequal pay and as most are freelance, a lack of terms, conditions and benefits that other workers have.
When cuts occur, funding for public arts programmes are the first to disappear, with governments disregarding the benefit to society, communities and the economy, (the creative industries contributed £109 billion to the UK economy in 2021, according to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport) as well as the livelihoods of artists.
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