As Scotland heads to the polls, the main parties offer variations on the same script, says MATT KERR
I WAS born in Lower Broughton, Salford, in Sussex Street, next to Andrew Street, where Ewan McColl was born. My father, grandfather and uncles were all coalminers.
My uncle Harold worked at Bradford colliery and was a friend of the playwright Jimmy Allen. Mining and politics were my life from an early age.
I began work at Agecroft colliery in the late 1970s. My dad also worked at the pit. I took part in the strikes of 1969, 1972 and 1974 picketing with my dad — all great victories for the miners and the working class.
A past confrontation permanently shaped the methods the state will use to protect employers against any claims by their employees, writes MATT WRACK, but unions are readying to face the challenge
JOHN LANG recalls how Murdoch used scabbing electricians and even devised a fake newspaper to force a confrontation with printers – then sacked them all
Forty years on, TONY DUBBINS revisits the Wapping dispute to argue that Murdoch’s real aim was union-busting – enabled by Thatcherite laws, police violence, compliant unions and a complicit media
‘Chance encounters are what keep us going,’ says novelist Haruki Murakami. In Amy, a chance encounter gives fresh perspective to memories of angst, hedonism and a charismatic teenage rebel.



