A landmark UN resolution led by Ghana declares the transatlantic slave trade the gravest crime against humanity — but Western opposition and abstentions reveal enduring resistance to historical accountability, write ISAAC SANEY and JAMES COUNTS EARLY
AS a modern-day Aesop’s Fable might put it, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has laboured mightily and brought forth a mouse. With a majority of around 156 MPs at Westminster, her Budget on Wednesday missed a golden opportunity to begin fixing Britain’s big social and economic problems.
These include 14 million people in poverty (including four million children); six million patients on hospital waiting lists; 1,290,000 people and families on housing waiting lists; and public services run down or privatised.
Led by the Tories and their right-wing press, much of the public debate before, during and after Budget day focused on Labour’s plans to increase employers’ National Insurance contributions (NICs).
The 2025 Budget shores up the PM’s political position with headline-grabbing welfare U-turns, but with no improvements on offer to declining public services or living standards, writes MICHAEL BURKE
RMT’s former president ALEX GORDON explains why his union supports defence diversification and a just transition for workers in regions dependent on military contracts, and calls on readers to join CND’s demo against nuclear-armed submarines on June 7



