While all of good faith on the left should wish the new party well, ANDREW MURRAY pinpoints some of the major challenges it will need to grapple with as it approaches its founding conference later this month
Hunterston: the forgotten battle that paved the way for Orgreave
Forty years on, an ex-miner tells MATT KERR about the brutal police tactics used against Scottish pickets at a crucial coal terminal, part of the hidden history of state violence and media manipulation during the miners’ strike
TIM LEZARD dissects the motives behind the apoplectic right-wing attack on the BBC
Western nations’ increasingly aggressive stance is not prompted by any increase in security threats against these countries — rather, it is caused by a desire to bring about regime changes against governments that pose a threat to the hegemony of imperialism, writes PRABHAT PATNAIK
NICK MATTHEWS recalls how the ideals of socialism and the holding of goods in common have an older provenance than you might think
Reaching co-operation is supposed to be the beginning, not the end, of global climate governance, argues LISA VANHALA
I REMEMBER the sunshine blazing in our living room window in Stanley Road, Saltcoats, as my dad came home from work and plonked himself down on his seat. My sister and I would usually try to climb onto his lap.
It could have been any day really, but this one sticks in the memory. The television was switched on for the news and we watched images of miners apparently attacking police in what looked like open warfare. I watched it, transfixed. When the scenes ended and the news returned to the studio, my dad said something that still rings in my ears: “Do you believe what you just saw? Don’t. Don’t believe it. Don’t believe the state news.”
It stuck for years in part because at the time I didn’t really understand it, and partly because he wasn’t in the habit of being in that sort of mood when he got home.
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