Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO reports from the start of Kunming’s Belt and Road media forum, where 200 journalists from 71 countries celebrated a new openness and optimism, forged by China’s enormous contribution to global development
Latest editorial
Their ‘mobs’ and our protests: knowing the difference
EP Thompson opposed romanticising riots, but the democratic intent of Palestinian protests is evident – which is why the powers that be really hate them. Looking at history, from the Chartists to today, they always have, explains KEITH FLETT
A young protester is pounced on by police officers on Whitehall, December 2023
Women opponents of the Trump regime fear his misogynist, racist and anti-immigrant views are taking hold in Britain, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER, as protests against his visit hit London’s streets
It is rather strange that Labour continues to give prestigious roles to inappropriate, controversy-mired businessmen who are also major Tory donors. What could Labour possibly be hoping to get out of it, asks SOLOMON HUGHES
Politicians who continue to welcome contracts with US companies without considering the risks and consequences of total dependency in the years to come are undermining the raison d’etre of the NHS, argues Dr JOHN PUNTIS
MISH RAHMAN introduces the platform of a new organisation within Your Party, which will campaign for the highest level of democracy, accountability and participation, having learned from the mistakes of Labour in the 2015-19 era
ANDREW MURRAY wonders what the great communist foe of Oswald Mosley would make of today’s far-right surge, warning that while the triumph of Farage and ‘Robinson’ is far from inevitable, placing any faith in Starmer in an anti-fascist front is a fool’s errand
THE right-wing media is full of bellicose Tories, including the Prime Minister, who say that Palestinian protests are “aggressive mobs” that are apparently threatening democracy. Yet more measures are planned to “crack down” on protest, except for ones that the Tories support such as farmers, of course.
Before she was sacked as home secretary, Suella Braverman said Palestinian protests were “hate marches” and protesters an “intimidating mob,” which is also what the reactionary thinker Edmund Burke said about the French revolution.
She then summoned up far-right groups who duly appeared and attacked police at the Cenotaph on Armistice Day. Meanwhile, crowds of many hundreds of thousands have continued to march peacefully calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in central London.
More from this author
Who you ask and how you ask matter, as does why you are asking — the history of opinion polls shows they are as much about creating opinions as they are about recording them, writes socialist historian KEITH FLETT
KEITH FLETT revisits debates about the name and structure of proposed working-class parties in the past
The summer saw the co-founders of modern communism travelling from Ramsgate to Neuenahr to Scotland in search of good weather, good health and good newspapers in the reading rooms, writes KEITH FLETT
KEITH FLETT looks at the long history of coercion in British employment laws
