FRAN HEATHCOTE believes that while the the Chancellor outlined some positive steps, the government does not appreciate the scale of the cost-of-living crisis affecting working-class people, whose lives are blighted by endemic low pay
Can a left base be built after the election? The future depends on it
An election campaign marked by racism and a willingness for the ‘mainstream’ to enable it gives a strong indication of what politics will look like later on down the line. Can a socialist and anti-imperialist network be forged to counter this dangerous prospect, asks ANDREW MURRAY
QUESTIONS remain UNANSWERED: Keir Starmer speaks to media during a visit to Global Brands in Claycross, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, on Tuesday
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is pouring €11.5bn into the Kiev swamp, blocking Trump’s peace plan, and pushing Nato right up to Russia’s borders – no matter if it costs hundreds of thousands of lives, warns SEVIM DAGDELEN
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
The unifying victory of Irish progressive forces in the presidential campaign should be a salutary lesson to the left in this country, argues MARY GRIFFITHS CLARKE
Martin Taylor, the hedge-fund multimillionaire who has poured millions into pushing Labour rightwards, helped finance Lucy Powell’s supposedly dissenting campaign — suggesting her victory was not the ‘soft-left’ rebellion some have claimed, says SOLOMON HUGHES
A November 15 protest in Mexico – driven by a right-wing social-media operation – has been miscast as a mass uprising against President Sheinbaum. In reality, the march was small, elite-backed and part of a wider attempt to sow unrest, argues DAVID RABY
IT BEGAN amid inanity and racism. And it ends amid apathy — and racism.
It began with Rishi Sunak mislaying his umbrella for the big announcement and Keir Starmer trying to end the parliamentary career of one black woman, Diane Abbott, while trying to stop that of another, Faiza Shaheen, from even starting.
It ends with a disengaged electorate disliking the options before it — and with Keir Starmer urging more deportations of Bangladeshis alongside the dominant personality appearing to be Nigel Farage, who sets the agenda without having done a day’s shift as an MP.
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While Starmer courts BlackRock and backs genocide, leading to despair and historically low voter turnout, the vultures of the new populist right circle Britain’s crumbling institutions, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE
From boozy banker renegade to man-of-the-people populist, Farage’s evolution continues — if he can win constituencies like the Welsh mining areas, the left will need new and better answers, writes ANDREW MURRAY