While slashing welfare and public services, Labour’s spring statement delivers a bonanza for death-dealing bomb merchants. We now see the true and terrible face of austerity 2.0, writes MICHAEL BURKE
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Strikes Bill: trade unions and the authoritarian state
We know the legislation intends to compel unions to force a ‘minimum’ number of workers over their own picket line, but how exactly is not clear, write KEITH EWING and LORD JOHN HENDY KC
Detailing the deluge of delusion and dishonesty pushed by the pro-war camp, IAN SINCLAIR identifies four key tactics corporate journalists use to confuse audiences and suppress opposition to the proxy war in the east
From ‘moral duty’ to ‘military Keynesianism,’ Labour manipulates language to justify slashing welfare but pouring billions into warfare, condemning communities like Glasgow South West to deeper poverty, writes MATT KERR
With politicians dismissing constituents’ fears of global war, the peace movement must look beyond Parliament to prevent catastrophe, writes TOM MORRISON
The mass movement supporting Palestine represents potential political power that the left must now embrace as central to its strategy, writes HUGH LANNING, ahead of this Saturday’s Socialism or Barbarism day school in London
Health Secretary Wes Streeting taking £53k from Tory-linked recruiter and outsourcer Peter Hearn’s OPD Group is a great example of how Labour’s rich donors shape policies targeting the poor – not their wealth, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
MAT COWARD recalls the communist and pacifist aristocrat whose commitment made a difference in the Spanish civil war, the Blitz and WWII Europe
THE Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 received royal assent shortly before the summer holidays.
As readers of these columns will know, the Act imposes new and unprecedented restrictions on the right to strike, these restrictions extending potentially to six sectors: health services; fire and rescue services; education services; transport services; nuclear decommissioning; and border security.
The Act authorises ministers to make regulations for minimum service levels to be provided during a strike in each of these sectors.
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Labour’s long-awaited Employment Rights Bill does not do nearly enough to remove the restraints on trade unions or to give them the powers they need to make a significant difference to the lives of the millions of workers, write KEITH EWING and Lord JOHN HENDY KC
Professor Keith Ewing and Lord John Hendy KC examine the new deal for workers outlined in the King's Speech and what should follow it
by Professor Keith Ewing and Lord Hendy KC
The government is openly committed to meeting the social and financial crisis with attacks on working people rather than reform. That is why we must now launch our own programme, write KEITH EWING and LORD JOHN HENDY KC
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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
Labour’s long-awaited Employment Rights Bill does not do nearly enough to remove the restraints on trade unions or to give them the powers they need to make a significant difference to the lives of the millions of workers, write KEITH EWING and Lord JOHN HENDY KC
FBU vows to press Labour to repeal anti-strike laws
We must be prepared to mobilise and build a mass movement against the Tories’ vicious anti-union law, writes Fire Brigades Union leader MATT WRACK