Climate justice and workers’ rights movements are uniting to make the rich pay for our transition to a green economy, writes assistant general secretary of PCS JOHN MOLONEY, ahead of a major demonstration on September 20

AFTER a few short years, the early 1980s saw a group of young comedians named by leader Peter Richardson as The Comic Strip soon graduate from seedy Soho venues to Britain’s TV screens in the shape of the newly launched Channel 4.
With the exception of older associates such as Alexei Sayle, The Comic Strip’s brand of “alternative” comedy was not especially political, but as the Thatcher years wore inexorably on, the “Great She-Elephant, she-who-must-be-obeyed, the Catherine the Great of Finchley” and her increasingly rabid Tory government presented too tempting a target not to aim at.
In a series of TV movies, the company spoofed both the Conservatives and the (largely) ineffectual Labour opposition on issues of the day, ranging from the Falklands war to the abolition of the Greater London Council.

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Along Came Love, The Ballad of Wallis Island, The Ritual, and Karate Kid: Legends

RITA DI SANTO surveys the smorgasbord of films on offer at this year’s festival

