Both Conservative and Labour administrations have now refused to release research showing PIP payments are vital for disabled people’s survival, exposing the ideological nature of planned welfare ‘reforms,’ writes Dr DYLAN MURPHY
School support staff: the oil that keeps education running
Despite caring for vulnerable children and often covering classes, support staff remain undervalued, with some earning less than supermarket workers — but GMB’s campaigning offers new hope, argues DONNA SPICER
Western media dismisses the National People’s Congress while ignoring its extensive consultation processes, massive public participation mechanisms, and a tiered structure involving millions of deputies, explains JENNY CLEGG
NICK WRIGHT examines how Farage’s party has attracted five distinct voter tribes with incompatible views on economics, immigration and state intervention — presenting both a challenge and opportunity for left organising
Man-made canals like Panama and Suez face unprecedented challenges from extreme weather patterns and geopolitical tensions that reveal the fragility of our global trade networks, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
As climate change makes vast mineral deposits accessible, the island’s 56,000 residents face unprecedented pressure from Trump’s territorial ambitions while struggling to maintain their traditional way of life, writes JOHN GREEN
Student Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest and threatened deportation are terrifying — but the moribund Democrats are still failing to mount any meaningful resistance against the slide toward autocracy, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
From golf and football to Formula One, the kingdom uses unprecedented investments in global sport to divert attention from its persecution of journalists, dissidents and women, write BELLA KATZ and ROGER McKENZIE
IT was the summer of 1989. I was 16 and leaving school. This was a time when you could walk out of school and into any job. I left school with no qualifications. I went on to sixth-form college, but I was more interested in the “university of life” and wanted to work.
I did all kinds of jobs, waitressing, shop work, and even delivering newspapers to make ends meet. I became a single mum to two, at a very young age, but didn’t want to live on benefits. When my youngest started nursery school I set out to get a job that fitted around them.
I first volunteered at my children’s nursery, three days a week. While there, I was offered a cover role for a month as a midday meals supervisor — dinner lady to you and me — and this was the beginning of my journey into education.
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Cardiff teacher MATT FLAMENCO pledges solidarity to the Port Talbot strikers, warning that losing vital industries will blight already struggling communities and shatter the futures of the classroom’s most vulnerable children
