A vast US war fleet deployed in the south Caribbean — ostensibly to fight drug-trafficking but widely seen as a push for violent regime change — has sparked international condemnation and bipartisan resistance in the US itself. FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ reports
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An unpaid debt of honour: the miners’ strike 40 years on
The workers of the coalfields are the giants whose shoulders we stand on today, says GRAHAME MORRIS MP
BRUTAL: Policemen lead away a picket from outside the NUM HQ in Sheffield, 1984
ANSELM ELDERGILL recalls the misjudgments, mishaps and moments of farce that shaped his years in legal practice
MAT COWARD tells how 18th-century scholar and revolutionary democrat Joseph Ritson turned a medieval outlaw into England’s people’s hero — soon to be gracing panto halls around the nation
The Communist Party of Britain’s Congress last month debated a resolution on ending opposition to all nuclear power in light of technological advances and the climate crisis. RICHARD HEBBERT explains why
Amid the festive lights, Scotland faces a stark holiday truth: only real investment in public services and the workers who sustain them can lift communities out of poverty, argues LILIAN MACER
Behind the cute names of Scotland’s road gritters lies a workforce underpaid and overlooked – a fitting reflection of a Budget that protected profits, bungled its rollout and offered hardly a glimmer of hope, writes MATT KERR
FORTY years ago the government went to war against working people.
Their “crime” was exercising the democratic, civil and industrial rights for which working people had fought and died. It wasn’t about improving wages and conditions; it was a struggle for survival, jobs, and a way of life unique to our mining communities.
The pit was the cornerstone of mining community, providing both employment and wages. Its economic impact extended beyond the mine itself, fostering a thriving local economy with independent businesses lining the high street. Miners’ contributions would also finance essential community assets such as parks, sports facilities and welfare halls.
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STEVEN ANDREW is moved beyond words by a historical account of mining in Britain made from the words of the miners themselves
In the second extract from her new memoir, former NUM headquarters staffer HILARY CAVE recounts the bitter struggle to provide sustenance for strikers’ families, and the invidious role of David Willetts – now in the House of Lords
Remembering KEN CAPSTICK, vice-president of the National Union of Mineworkers Yorkshire Area