After years hidden away, Oldham’s memorial to six local volunteers who died fighting fascism in the Spanish civil war has been restored to public view, marking both a victory for campaigners and a renewed tribute to the town’s proud International Brigade heritage, says ROB HARGREAVES
Latest editorial
What a surprise – Starmer’s a dud
Supposedly top journalists and commentators are suddenly reversing their earlier proclamations that our Labour PM is terrific, and are now saying he’s crap. SOLOMON HUGHES has a shrewd idea why
Keir Starmer
While pretending to seek peace, Europe is heading toward a collision course with Russia – using security guarantees, troop deployments, expropriation and censorship as tools, writes SEVIM DAGDELEN
Alba party leader KENNY MacASKILL makes some suggestions on how to save our pubs and reduce irresponsible drinking
The catastrophe unfolding in Gaza – where Palestinians are freezing to death in tents – is not a natural disaster but a calculated outcome of Israel’s ongoing blockade, aid restrictions and continued violence, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
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
The long-term effects of chemical weapons such as Agent Orange mean that the impact of war lasts well beyond a ceasefire
A WHOLE host of top journalists are openly claiming Sir Keir is crap at being PM. These are the very same journalists who only months ago were saying Starmer was super at the job, so this tells us something about SW1 journalism as well as our PM.
For example, Jason Cowley had a column in the Times just before Christmas about Starmer’s first six months as PM, saying that “even Labour veterans are calling it the worst start by a government in a lifetime.”
Cowley wrote that Labour might have had a “strategy to win the general election” but “not to govern.” Or it might be worse: Cowley thought it may be that “they did have a plan, it was incoherent and undermined by factionalism.” This is slightly generous about Starmer’s plan to win the election, as his Labour Party really came into power on a “loveless landslide,” with fewer votes than Jeremy Corbyn, because the right was split between Reform and Tory. But it is an admission from a Starmer-friendly pundit that the PM is in trouble.
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From Gaza complicity to welfare cuts chaos, Starmer’s baggage accumulates, and voters will indeed find ‘somewhere else’ to go — to the Greens, nationalists, Lib Dems, Reform UK or a new, working-class left party, writes NICK WRIGHT
ANDREW MURRAY welcomes the inside story of Labour under Starmer for the revelations it offers as to who is pulling the strings
What’s behind the sudden wave of centrist ‘understanding’ about the real nature of Starmerism and its deep unpopularity? SOLOMON HUGHES reckons he knows the reasons for this apparent epiphany
BERNIE EVANS despairs of a government that is asking the crooks sucking Britain dry how to get the economy back on track