DENNIS BROE gives an update on the last week of anti-austerity protests against the Macron regime, which has seen the supposedly more right-leaning Gilets Jaunes join with the unions and the left
When Labour chose austerity: the 1976 IMF crisis
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
TURNING POINT: The anti-cuts plan put forward by Tony Benn (left) was rejected by James Callaghan (right) — and Labour has never looked back
JOHN PERRY and FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ unpack the latest propaganda attack on Nicaragua, explaining how a clearly biased, US-backed regime-change NGO used a totally unrepresentative sample and survey methodology to get a ridiculous result
In 1981, towering figure for the British left Tony Benn came a whisker away from victory, laying the way for a wave of left-wing Labour Party members, MPs and activism — all traces of which are now almost entirely purged by Starmer, writes KEITH FLETT
ANDREW MURRAY breaks down this week’s rift in the new left party that was at one point polling at 15 per cent of the vote without even having formed — whether it will form now has been thrown into a pit of doubt
DIANE ABBOTT MP argues we shouldn’t see last week’s march as an inarticulate outpouring of confused class consciousness, arguing that the agenda was set by the stars of the international far right, whose speeches were explicit, extreme and unopposed
BERNADETTE KEAVENEY announces a simplified and streamlined way to get your paper delivered daily, and a big push for new readers that we can all help make into a success
IN 1973 there was a military coup against a democratically elected left-wing government in Chile. It was a bloody and vicious affair (on the part of the army and its US backers) but is probably not the preferred instrument of the ruling order for regime change or, perhaps more accurately, regime changes.
Sometimes there are people who have to go or be moved to “keep the markets happy.” It happened to Tony Benn in 1975 after Labour was elected twice in 1974, February and October.
But more often it’s about policy changes. What it meant for Britain in 1976 is largely a matter of historical record and memoirs now.
More from this author
In 1981, towering figure for the British left Tony Benn came a whisker away from victory, laying the way for a wave of left-wing Labour Party members, MPs and activism — all traces of which are now almost entirely purged by Starmer, writes KEITH FLETT
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
