As a proportion of GDP the total welfare bill is lower than it was 15 years ago. The claim that it is spiralling out of control is mythmaking, argues DIANE ABBOTT

The new PM may offer more of the same, but early signs on his housing policies look promising, says GLYNN ROBBINS

PM commits to blowing millions on nukes

Only a publicly run, properly funded system that puts dignity before profit can end decades of market failure, says PAUL DONOVAN

Andy Burnham’s leadership will be judged on whether he charts a genuinely different course, argues BECK ROBERTSON

Burnham urged to create publicly-provided national care service before the end of the parliament, and to keep his promise to ditch neoliberalism

‘Rent freezes are not a way forward at the moment,’ Housing Secretary Angela Rayner says

by Alistair Findlay

The new Prime Minister must abandon decades of automatic support for US foreign policy, which makes us all less safe, argues DIANE ABBOTT MP

Mr Burnham's £2 cap on bus fares welcomed by trade unions

The government’s Pip review looks like a carefully managed exercise in legitimising future cuts to disability support, argues Dr DYLAN MURPHY

Waiting for the grander vision to emerge

The new PM’s opening addresses offered hope, council homes and reform — but little detail on how any of it will be delivered, warns CLAUDIA WEBBE

The Tories introduced the 50% strike ballot threshold to make industrial action harder. MATT WRACK argues that a Labour government has no justification for leaving it on the statute book

Despite the screeching from the right-wing media, Burnham’s speech chimed with the public mood - and socialists should take advantage, says Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO 

Wales reporter DAVID NICHOLSON looks at the political scene as budget rows take centre-stage and Welsh Labour gains a new leader

The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum

United Nations experts slam Britain for ‘perpetuating serious human rights violations’

Against the backdrop of the Durham Miners’ Gala, Matt Kerr talks to ANDY McDONALD MP about Labour’s mistakes, Burnham’s leadership and why raising living standards must come first

Meanwhile, incoming PM Andy Burnham dithers over who should be his Chancellor

Trade unions call for windfall tax hike to fund social energy tariff to public’s energy bills

The PM leaves office having squandered Labour’s electoral mandate and alienated its grassroots. He will not be missed, writes BRIAN LEISHMAN MP

Can Andy Burnham’s programme deliver a productive economy – or merely a softer version of capitalism, asks VINCE MILLS

The government’s latest asylum proposals abandon labour movement values and fuel division by aping Reform UK, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP

IAN LAVERY MP warns that decades of neoliberal policies have left former industrial communities behind — but a renewed Labour commitment to working people could change the political landscape

JAMES WALSH recommends an exceptional documentary about the experience of Western doctors in Gaza

IAN SINCLAIR examines the curious memory lapses across liberal media when it comes to British government crimes

History suggests apartheid ends not through appeals to conscience alone but through sustained economic and political pressure, says HUGH LANNING

Government's plan means ‘extra cash for war and overseas interventions, but less for schools and hospitals,’ Unison general secretary Andrea Egan warns

Keir Starmer's early political life suggests a very different future from the one he ultimately embraced, says KEITH FLETT

Incoming PM told to ‘stand up for the public, not shareholders around the world’

The electoral cost of Labour’s stance on Gaza is impossible to ignore – the new leadership must take heed, argues PETER LEARY

Burnham’s Makerfield triumph offers the party the opportunity to reconnect with working people, but only if it rejects business as usual, says CAROL MOCHAN MSP

Labour peer Alf Dubs calls on incoming PM to country’s Britain's borders with a ‘commitment to basic rights, and compassion for those who are in time of greatest need’

PAUL O’BRIEN of Labour Movement for Irish Unity looks at the Makerfield MP’s record when it comes to the north of Ireland

The former Ofcom chair increasingly echoed the arguments of the broadcasters he was meant to regulate, says STEPHEN ARNELL

Repealing Britain’s most dangerous Bill must be the first act of whoever replaces Keir Starmer, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE

Keir Starmer’s resignation speech seemed to be coming from a different universe, or maybe it was just a fanfaronade of falsehoods, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

Starmer will be judged on his record, but it would be wrong to view him in isolation from the crisis of the British political establishment, says the COMMUNIST PARTY in its official statement on the PM’s resignation

The basis for 20th-century social democracy in Britain is gone, argues ANDREW MURRAY – but there are measures a Burnham government could take that would break with neoliberalism

Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO says assessing a Labour leader whose mission was to smash the left must involve addressing the delusions that fuelled his rise

ANDREW MURRAY looks back at a damaging career marked by dishonesty, incompetence and revolting complicity in war crimes

Unions and MPs tell PM to quit after Burnham's triumph in Makerfield

Voters have delivered a stay of execution for Labour and exposed limits to Reform’s advance. But will Burnham offer a political alternative rather than just a different face at the top, asks ANDREW MURRAY

MATT KERR takes stock of a night of by-elections, where the long repeated warnings for Labour and the political class remain stubbornly unheeded

The US blockade of Cuba raises risks of a new global pandemic, experts warn at Unison conference

Rising support for Farage’s party reflects Labour’s failure to defend working-class living standards or offer a credible alternative to neoliberal decline, says JOSEPH MILLS

Starmer makes desperate effort to buy off Burnham as polls suggest he is set to win Makerfield by-election

Cabinet Office sets out plan for bringing services like cleaning and security back in-house

Campaigners and MPs blast Court of Appeal’s decision to uphold Palestine Action ban

If Labour continues to abandon the promise of economic hope and security, Reform will keep filling the vacuum in communities once considered its heartlands, argues IAN LAVERY MP

The FBU leader speaks to Ben Chacko about cuts, collapsing Starmerism and confronting the far right

Transparency records reveal senior trade officials held dinners and strategy meetings with the notorious lobbying firm even as controversy over its Epstein links deepened, says SOLOMON HUGHES

Starmer promised a reset after Labour’s dire electoral performance, but the government’s programme still falls far short of the bold action needed, says ANDY McDONALD MP

The Starmer project is going up in smoke – but if the left cannot swiftly build a viable alternative, the country faces the grim reality of a hard-right takeover, says ANDREW MURRAY

ALAN SIMPSON says responses to the Golders Green attacks risk deepening divides across our country

Meanwhile, far-right Reform UK projected to gain around 1,550 representatives

Welsh Labour leader ELUNED MORGAN explains how a vote for the party will deliver the progress and continuity the country needs on manufacturing, renewables, creative industries and more

Starmer facing Labour rebellion as back-bench MPs come out against plan to block probe into his handling of Mandelson

The party’s internal enforcer built his sinister influence in the shadows – but nemesis now appears to be at hand, says ANDREW MURRAY

JOANNE THOMAS argues that unions’ political voice remains vital to winning stronger rights and protections for working people

The labour movement must challenge the endless austerity narrative — and Unity Consulting will play its part to complement the work already being done by trade unions

DIANE ABBOTT looks at how a declining US has resorted to globalised violence to salvage any vestiges of political and economic hegemony

Polls show Labour facing meltdown in May elections for devolved parliaments and local authorities

Socialists cannot back warfare over welfare, MPs and peace campaigners warn after former Nato boss demands government cuts social spending to finance weapons

KEITH FLETT looks at the state’s efforts to limit protest rights from the 19th century to today’s repression of the Palestine movement

The government has few aces up its sleeve when it comes to managing popular anger, argues ANDREW MURRAY

Thousands expected to join largest anti-racist march in a generation in London this Saturday

Green Party leader Polanski slams Chancellor Reeves' ‘unbelievably weak response’ to the ‘enormous bill hikes facing households’

Changing visa rules are pushing young migrant workers into precarious work and exploitation, report NUPUR PALIWAL and SOMIHA CHATTERJEE of the Student Federation of India

Young Communist League general secretary GEORGINA ANDREWS says the far right are filling a vacuum created by Labour’s abandonment of working-class interests — we have to give our class a better offer

Lawyer slams prosecution on final day Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal and Stop the War Coalition vice-chair Chris Nineham's trial

Until ministers stop deferring to the market and start drawing hard lines, the public will remain at the mercy of private power, says MATT KERR

As the Stop the War Coalition holds its annual conference, ANDREW MURRAY warns that Britain’s alignment with US foreign policy is fuelling global instability and diverting billions from welfare, wages and public services

While Wes Streeting claims Britain lacks a growth strategy, his own NHS plans reveal one – turning the health service’s vast troves of patient data into a commercial asset for tech giants, investors and private healthcare firms, says HELEN MERCER

Prime Minister urged to ditch Trump as campaigners warn US's illegal war in Iran will raise energy bills and worsen public services

Tehran retaliates with attacks on Israel, the Gulf Arab states and crude oil flows

While the result signals a restless appetite for real change, it also underlines how much organising, beyond the ballot box, is still required to turn protest into lasting transformation, argues DAN ROSS

Labour’s by-election defeat tells a story Scotland has known since 2008. A party that assumes loyalty while offering little more than managed decline will eventually discover that voters always have somewhere else to turn, says MATT KERR

With our ruling class struggling to secure a new vehicle for power and the disintegration of the traditional party system, a volatile new chapter is opening, sharpened by war, austerity and electoral distortion, argues NICK WRIGHT

KEITH FLETT highlights the inimical role of the strategist who helped shape Tony Blair’s ascent and whose political blueprint continues to echo in the era of Keir Starmer

Court strikes down Palestine Action ban as government slammed for its promise to fight the decision in appeals

A political culture of spin and wilful blindness where journalists play along with power has meant the so-called ‘Prince of Darkness’ has been given an easy ride by the media – until now… MATT KERR reports

Tax exile Sir Jim Ratcliffe slammed after claiming that ‘UK is being colonised’ immigrants

The Carpathia isn’t coming to rescue this government still swimming in the mire, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

The US president’s career is defined by a consistent use of racist tropes and provocation. Why are world leaders so silent over his repeated vitriolic prejudice, asks ROGER McKENZIE

Paul Holden’s book, The Fraud, exposes a hidden war inside Labour, where claims of anti-semitism, amplified by media power and factional networks, were used to break Corbynism and recast the party. JOHN ELLISON revisits the scandals, investigations and suppressed evidence from that era

The Mandelson scandal reveals a political settlement in which democratic choice is curtailed and the power of markets eclipses the will of voters – only the left can challenge this, writes JON TRICKETT MP

Anti-war campaigners say the Health Secretary's private admission to Peter Mandelson only makes him more guilty of complicity in Israel’s crimes

Corbyn’s intervention exposes a corrupted system, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE

Paul Holden’s The Fraud reveals how a network of donors, MPs and opaque organisations quietly organised to destroy Corbyn’s leadership and manufacture a new centre of power inside Labour, writes JOHN ELLISON

The British Prime Minister’s Beijing visit marked the end of a long diplomatic hiatus and produced tangible, if limited, economic results, says KEITH BENNETT

MATT KERR takes a winter journey through poetry, labour and memory, from Glasgow to Newcastle, arguing that our radical past isn’t something to revere from a distance, but a tool still meant to be used

Megapicket to shut down Birmingham’s refuse sites

The Labour Growth Group and its think tank partner, the Good Growth Foundation, have taken funding from major lobbying firms linked to housebuilders, banks and Heathrow – raising questions about corporate influence at the heart of Starmer’s pro-growth project. SOLOMON HUGHES reports

Labour announces largest policing overhaul in 200 years, including the creation of a ‘British FBI,’ sparking human rights concerns

As liberal commentators puzzle over the Prime Minister’s record-breaking unpopularity, the reasons remain glaringly obvious to everyone else, says IAN SINCLAIR

Trade unionists and MPs hit back at party executive's decision to block Greater Manchester mayor from running in upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election

PM could be ejected from Downing Street if Welsh Labour loses Senedd elections in May, First Minister says

Lawyers to challenge approval of data centre in Britain that ‘pollutes on the scale of an international airport’

Campaigners call on public to join protests across the country demanding Starmer stands up to the far-right US president

But hospitality industry warns other businesses are being forgotten

ANSELM ELDERGILL examines our laws concerning the treatment of animals and their rights

After 15 years of spending cuts and regressive redistribution, the British economy is weaker, investment is still anaemic and living standards are stalled – yet all major parties remain committed to a policy that has repeatedly failed to deliver recovery, says MICHAEL BURKE

SOLOMON HUGHES says Starmer has done everything the Westminster set think Labour leaders should do – but it hasn’t endeared him to the public

Labour’s decline, Tory exhaustion and the advance of Reform UK signal the end of stable two-party rule, with British politics entering a volatile new phase, says NICK WRIGHT

Barristers say there is ‘no evidence’ that Labour's drastic plans will reduce the backlog of cases waiting to be heard in court

BEN CHACKO salutes the Morning Star cartoonists

Campaigners urge Labour ministers not to entertain Tory and Reform UK's ‘racist’ calls to strip human rights activist Alaa Abd Fattah of his citizenship over decades-old social media posts

Labour’s cynical recruitment drive normalises militarism, diverts attention from youth unemployment and public service cuts, and seeks to build consent for an increasingly aggressive defence agenda, argues GEORGINA ANDREWS

As unemployment rises and living standards fall, May’s economic announcement risks locking Britain into further decline rather than charting a new course, warns JON TRICKETT MP

Campaigns against nuclear weapons on the Clyde, financial backing for arms firms and rising militarism are converging with solidarity for Palestine, as Scotland’s peace movement builds momentum ahead of the 2026 Holyrood election, says ARTHUR WEST

600 educators sign open letter urging government to protect lives of prisoners jailed for more than a year without trial over alleged direct action linked to Palestine solidarity

Activists graffiti the 8 hunger strikers' demands across the Deputy PM's north London office 

Opinion polls point to electoral collapse, parliamentary rebellion and a looming leadership challenge as Starmer’s Labour haemorrhages working-class support and the far right exploits the vacuum left by a hollowed-out party, says NICK WRIGHT

Five hunger-striking prisoners jailed without trial for alleged offences related to Palestine Action have already been taken to hospital

New reforms ‘could open door to rampant profiteering and chaos’

Looking back to Engels’s reflections on the ILP’s emergence in the 1890s offers a revealing lens on the forces shaping a new working-class politics in 2025, says KEITH FLETT

Unions and left MPs slam government for cutting day one protections from unfair dismissal into the Employment Rights Bill

DIANE ABBOTT warns that Shabana Mahmood’s draconian asylum proposals fuel racist scapegoating and risk demoralising Labour’s base – potentially paving the way for Farage to No 10

Government urged to tackle high electricity prices and boost insulation in next week’s Budget as elderly, low-income families and homeless people struggle to stay warm

Far-right figures ‘Tommy Robinson’ and Nigel Farage praise Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood's plans to force asylum seekers into 20 years of limbo before being able to settle in Britain

While all of good faith on the left should wish the new party well, ANDREW MURRAY pinpoints some of the major challenges it will need to grapple with as it approaches its founding conference later this month

Roger McKenzie talks to general secretary of Unison CHRISTINA McANEA about the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on members, the local government funding emergency and the threat of Reform UK

The Labour leadership’s narrow definition of ‘working people’ leads to distorted and unjust Budget calculations, where the unearned income of the super-wealthy doesn’t factor in at all, argues JON TRICKETT MP