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
Centrism is dead: welcome to the world of state-backed corporatism
The left must call out the fact that BlackRock and private billionaires have merged with the state apparatus as our leaders abandon any pretence of there being a ‘free market’ for direct and overt corporate control, writes JOE GILL

FOR many years, socialists have been predicting the imminent death of neoliberalism — the system of finance capitalism that has dominated the world since the late 1970s and ’80s.
Today, Donald Trump is promising tariffs across the board against Canada, Mexico, China and Europe. Keir Starmer’s Labour is going to renationalise trains and launch GB Energy, a state-backed energy company. Far-right populism is on the march across Europe.
Have we finally arrived when the era of liberalised global markets, privatisation and anti-union laws can be declared over?
More from this author

The trio were given a conditional discharge and £600 penalties after painting ‘Stop arming Israel’ on Science Secretary Peter Kyle’s window in frustration at being ignored despite attempts to meet their MP, reports JOE GILL

JOE GILL hazards a guess: Musk’s salute was a message to all of the world’s far-right legions: now is our time

From their apartheid-era childhoods to Trump’s inner circle, billionaires Elon Musk and Peter Thiel bring a colonial ‘divide and rule’ mindset to the global far-right project, where the masses turn on each other, writes JOE GILL

A Tory-lite Labour Party is clearly unpopular with the electorate who are desperate to see actual improvement to Britain’s decimated public services, writes JOE GILL
Similar stories

Keir Starmer’s BlackRock enthusiasm is a clear give-away for Tory continuity plans, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE

Undaunted by Big Oil success, ALAN SIMPSON looks at alternatives to lack of courage and imagination stifling the Labour government and it policies

This new plan may be one of Starmer’s avowed priorities in government, but he and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar have given conflicting accounts of how it will actually work. COLL McCAIL reports