While slashing welfare and public services, Labour’s spring statement delivers a bonanza for death-dealing bomb merchants. We now see the true and terrible face of austerity 2.0, writes MICHAEL BURKE
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The New Popular Front in France and the balance of class forces
Amid an enormously dynamic situation, can Le Pen’s National Rally be stopped in the forthcoming snap election and what role will the new left-wing anti-fascist pact play, asks KEVIN OVENDEN
Detailing the deluge of delusion and dishonesty pushed by the pro-war camp, IAN SINCLAIR identifies four key tactics corporate journalists use to confuse audiences and suppress opposition to the proxy war in the east
From ‘moral duty’ to ‘military Keynesianism,’ Labour manipulates language to justify slashing welfare but pouring billions into warfare, condemning communities like Glasgow South West to deeper poverty, writes MATT KERR
With politicians dismissing constituents’ fears of global war, the peace movement must look beyond Parliament to prevent catastrophe, writes TOM MORRISON
The mass movement supporting Palestine represents potential political power that the left must now embrace as central to its strategy, writes HUGH LANNING, ahead of this Saturday’s Socialism or Barbarism day school in London
Health Secretary Wes Streeting taking £53k from Tory-linked recruiter and outsourcer Peter Hearn’s OPD Group is a great example of how Labour’s rich donors shape policies targeting the poor – not their wealth, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
MAT COWARD recalls the communist and pacifist aristocrat whose commitment made a difference in the Spanish civil war, the Blitz and WWII Europe
FRANCE is in a deep systemic crisis of the kind that has punctuated its history with violent eruptions. We index them by the years in which they took place from 1789 onwards.
The panicked election for the National Assembly called by President Emmanuel Macron following his party’s humiliation in the European elections, means France in three weeks could have: a fascist prime minister, or a prime minister on a left programme that bosses are screaming is “anti-capitalist,” or no prime minister plus chaos in the government. All with eruptions on the street bigger than those already taking place. Hundreds of thousands protested at the weekend against Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Rally (RN) that topped the European election.
Polling for the legislative election is volatile. The RN is at about 32 per cent. Macron’s liberal-centrist party on 18 per cent. The main opposition to the right is from an alliance of left and centre-left parties, the Popular Front, drawn up last week. It has 28 per cent.
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The shameful passage of the assisted dying Bill where safeguards have been all but jettisoned is symptomatic of a hyper-liberalised society where the cult of individualism reigns supreme, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
The proxy war in Ukraine is heading to a denouement with the US and Russia dividing the spoils while the European powers stand bewildered by events they have been wilfully blind to, says KEVIN OVENDEN
As heavy industry flees and public-sector strikes paralyse the nation, the French leader’s increasingly desperate attempts to rule without a majority reveal the deep crisis at the heart of European liberal democracy, writes KEVIN OVENDEN
KEVIN OVENDEN draws on the Greek anti-fascist movement’s resounding successes against the neonazi Golden Dawn to outline a united front strategy to challenge state racism and surging mob violence
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As heavy industry flees and public-sector strikes paralyse the nation, the French leader’s increasingly desperate attempts to rule without a majority reveal the deep crisis at the heart of European liberal democracy, writes KEVIN OVENDEN
The Melenchon-led NFP coalition now holds most Assembly seats, challenging the president’s anti-worker agenda — the far-right threat remains, but the path to progressive government is now open, writes DENNIS BROE
Can the conservative, centre and left of French politics work out a complex dance of candidates standing aside for each other to prevent an outright, far-right victory this Sunday? NICK WRIGHT assesses
The snap election call has spectacularly backfired, with the right and centre furiously backstabbing itself into oblivion, and the left, from the communists to social democrats, quickly uniting into a New Popular Front, writes NICK WRIGHT