Cuba Solidarity Campaign secretary BERNARD REGAN says the inhuman blockade of Cuba not only continues, but the Donald Trump administration is ratcheting up aggression against both Havana and Latin America more widely
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Class, history and geography in the general election
KEITH FLETT offers some historical context to the election campaign’s final period
Starmer and Sunak arrive for their BBC debate in Nottingham
JOE GILL looks at research on the reasons people voted as they did last week and concludes Labour is finished unless it ditches Starmer and changes course
TONY BURKE says an International Labour Conference next month will try for a new convention to protect often super-exploited workers providing services such as ride-hailing (taxis) such as Uber as well as fast food and package delivery
In his May Day message for the Morning Star, RICHARD BURGON says the call for peace, equality and socialism has never been more relevant
This May Day we reaffirm our commitment to working people and our class and to get trade unionism back on the front foot, says EDDIE DEMPSEY
DIANE ABBOTT looks at the whys and hows of Labour’s spectacular own goal
When it comes to extreme weather events, from wildfires to flash floods, it’s firefighters who are on the front line of defence, but services have been cut to the bone, and government is not taking seriously its responsibility for the environment, says STEVE WRIGHT
A FOOTNOTE that the socialist historian EP Thompson made to his A Psessay in Ephology about the 1959 general election, though over 60 years old, does seem to capture quite well the relation between the media, leaders debate and opinion polls currently: “A psephologist is a man employed by the mass media to research into what people think the mass media has told them to think. An ephologist is a man employed by the Observer or BBC to interpret the results of psephology and who makes an ephing good thing out of it.”
Polling outfit Ipsos has published an MRP poll which shows the current break down of support in each constituency. For those who want the Tories out its good news. There is a Labour landslide coming with even hard-right figures like Robert Jenrick, Suella Braverman and Liz Truss not safe.
The headlines generated by such polls often come with brief if unexplained historical references. For example, the Tories are set to win fewer seats than at any election for over 100 years.
Meanwhile the projected Labour majority could be one of the largest the party has ever achieved. Sir Keir Starmer goes on constantly about his changed Labour Party but it is not a new approach. Very similar wording was used by Tony Blair in 1997. By “change” of course he means that he has purged much of the left from Labour. Purging voters is more difficult.
More from this author
KEITH FLETT revisits the 1978 origins of Britain’s May Day bank holiday — from Michael Foot’s triumph to Thatcher’s reluctant acceptance — as Starmer’s government dodges calls to expand our working-class celebrations
From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT
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
Starmer’s slash-and-burn approach to disability benefits represents a fundamental break with Labour’s founding mission to challenge the idle rich rather than punish the vulnerable poor, argues KEITH FLETT
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