As Colombia approaches presidential elections next year, the US decision to decertify the country in the war on drugs plays into the hands of its allies on the political right, writes NICK MacWILLIAM
1649: the forgotten part of Our Island Story
KEITH FLETT shines a light on the moment when parliamentary democracy laid down its first roots
A statue of Oliver Cromwell outside the Place of Westminster, in central London, September 3, 2008
The move against alleged PKK members that sparked outrage as a community centre in north London was raided last year has now come to trial, writes TONY BURKE, but in the meantime, the peace process abroad has changed the situation almost entirely
A new report points a way to overcome complacent framing of climate issues, ‘by sparking a wider public reckoning with climate realities,’ and reconnecting with working-class people. IAN SINCLAIR reports
We cannot understand today’s world without understanding the rise of China – and we cannot understand China without understanding how it was shaped by the second world war, writes JENNY CLEGG
NICK WRIGHT reports from Italy, where 80 cities saw Gaza strikes as unions paralysed transport and massive crowds clashed with police in Milan — but France is also kicking off, and Westminster, in a very different way, is facing a crisis of legitimacy too
Escalating anti-China rhetoric from the West has a clear purpose – to manufacture consent for the new cold war, and potentially a hot one, argues CARLOS MARTINEZ
VARIOUS members of the royal family have been in the news at the start of 2024 due to a range of health problems. Not for them, of course, the NHS but rather a private clinic in central London. Media coverage has been extensive but I can find no mention of another royal event.
January 30 in 2024 marked the 375th anniversary of the regicide that saw King Charles I executed in Whitehall for treason. Given that there is a powerful lobby on the Tory right that Our Island Story should be told in full and never added to or changed — a point made by Tory leadership contender Kemi Badenoch — this seems surprising.
Surprising that is until you start to look for historical reminders of the period between 1649 and 1660 when the country was run without the assistance of a monarch.
More from this author
In 1981, towering figure for the British left Tony Benn came a whisker away from victory, laying the way for a wave of left-wing Labour Party members, MPs and activism — all traces of which are now almost entirely purged by Starmer, writes KEITH FLETT
Who you ask and how you ask matter, as does why you are asking — the history of opinion polls shows they are as much about creating opinions as they are about recording them, writes socialist historian KEITH FLETT
KEITH FLETT revisits debates about the name and structure of proposed working-class parties in the past
The summer saw the co-founders of modern communism travelling from Ramsgate to Neuenahr to Scotland in search of good weather, good health and good newspapers in the reading rooms, writes KEITH FLETT
