Danni Perry’s flag display at the Royal Opera House sparked 182 performers to sign a solidarity letter that cancelled the Tel Aviv Tosca production, while Leonardo DiCaprio invests in Tel Aviv hotels, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Women and the miners' strike – a fresh look at our history
Recent research projects seek to re-examine the role of women during the 1984-5 miners’ strike by focusing on fact rather than prevailing formulaic imagery created by the media at the time. LYNNE WALSH reports
KNOW THY ENEMY: National women’s demonstration against pit closures in Barnsley
YANA PETTICREW explains what’s behind the strike and how the entire sector rests on super-exploiting an unorganised workforce
STEPHEN ARNELL casts a critical eye over the sudden rash of challenges to the two-party system on both sides of the Atlantic, noting that today’s performative populist politics sadly lacks Roosevelt’s progressive ‘Bull Moose’ vision of the early 20th century
BILL KIDD MSP says increasing Britain’s nuclear arsenal at this time is dangerous and expensive folly
ROGER McKENZIE asks whether the US’s shift to targeting everyone at once will instil greater co-operation among rising powers
THERE are couple of lines in Mal Finch’s great song, Women of the Working Class: “In fighting for our future we found ways to organise. Where Women’s Liberation failed to move, this strike has mobilised.”
The strike in question was, of course, the Miners’ Strike of 1984-85. Some of the women in question were groups up and down the country, part of Women Against Pit Closures [WAPC]. The mention of Women’s Lib, though, is a lot trickier to pin down. The movement had already been demonised, not only in the tabloid press, but in working men’s clubs, workplaces and, hush-hush, even trade unions.
Spurious tales of bra-burning were rife, the strike for equal pay at Ford’s Dagenham plant had ruffled feathers, and there was a female prime minister in No 10.
More from this author
LYNNE WALSH reports from the Women’s Declaration International conference on feminist struggles from Britain to the Far East
Caroline Darian, daughter of Gisele Pelicot, took part in a conversation with Afua Hirsch at London’s Royal Geographical Society. LYNNE WALSH reports
This year’s Bristol Radical History Festival focused on the persistent threats of racism, xenophobia and, of course, our radical collective resistance to it across Ireland and Britain, reports LYNNE WALSH
LYNNE WALSH previews the Bristol Radical History Conference this weekend
