From mass protests to plummeting poll numbers on immigration and health policy, and from devastating cuts to Medicaid and Medicare to the anti-science upheaval at federal health agencies, the president’s agenda is radicalising voters against him, argues JOHN LISTER
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A fight to defend our industry and our communities
Durham Miners Association chair STEPHEN GUY explains how the legacy of the strike lives on in north-east England with the miners’ gala in July and the under-refurbishment ‘Pitman’s Parliament’
Whether in recycling or energy policy, a deeper crisis in long-term thinking is apparent in Scotland. With the new Budget looming, MATT KERR wonders if we can move beyond shallow, headline-grabbing measures
Ahead of elections next year, Scottish Labour is seeking to jump-start its political fortunes – but without bringing wealth and wealth production under democratic control, the party’s future looks in doubt, says VINCE MILLS
In part IV of a serialisation of his new book, JOHN McINALLY tells how austerity minister Francis Maude’s attempt to destroy the PCS Civil Service union totally backfired
Building is the solution for much of our housing crisis – and will also help to address poverty, ill health, and even anti-social behaviour and alienation, writes KENNY MacASKILL
MAT COWARD advocates cultivating blackberries, a growing in popularity crop for gardens and allotments
THE miners’ strike of 1984-85 was an industrial dispute often considered a “battle,” involving 184,000 miners, their communities, the state, including most of the British media, the National Coal Board (NCB) and the Tory government, led by Margaret Thatcher.
The dispute was not about pay and conditions but rather a fight to preserve an industry, communities and a way of life. For decades, coalmining in Britain was the backbone of the economy, not least in north-east England, employing hundreds of thousands of people, hence the importance of victory in the struggle.
By any measure, the 1984-85 miners’ strike was a pivotal moment is British history and had no parallel in terms of its duration, size or impact, which continues to endure across many workplaces and communities.
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The Home Secretary’s recent letter suggests the Labour government may finally deliver on its nine-year manifesto commitment, writes KATE FLANNERY, but we must move quickly: as recently as 2024 Northumbria police destroyed miners’ strike documents
PETER LAZENBY is fascinated by a book of cartoons that shows how newspaper cartoonists were employed to, on the one hand, denigrade and, on the other, to defend the miners’ strike of 1984-85
Remembering KEN CAPSTICK, vice-president of the National Union of Mineworkers Yorkshire Area
With solidarity coming in from across Britain and the world, PETER LAZENBY speaks to the people who made Christmas 1984 a celebration of working-class resistance in Britain’s striking coalmining communities