Facing economic turmoil, Jim Callaghan’s government rejected Tony Benn’s alternative economic strategy in favour of cuts that paved the way for Thatcherism — and the cuts-loving Labour of the present era, writes KEITH FLETT
Has the time come to organise a general strike?
The government’s response to the cost-of-living crisis is nothing short of class war. Workers can’t be expected to take these attacks lying down, says LORD JOHN HENDY QC

IN PART one of this series in yesterday’s Morning Star, I argued that the fight of those on strike this summer and autumn, workers and unions who still have the right to bargain collectively, fight for the whole working class.
That right covered 85 per cent of workers in the 1970s. Now it’s less than 25 per cent.
From the history of the 1970s, we should take something else. In the summer of 1972, 50 years ago, five dockers were imprisoned in Pentonville for picketing in defiance of a court order.
More from this author

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

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

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