PCS general secretary FRAN HEATHCOTE explains why opposing war is inseparable from defending jobs, wages and public services – and why readers should come to the London Peace Conference on Saturday June 20
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One of the great democratic struggles for press freedom
PHIL KATZ relates how our forerunner, the Daily Worker, was banned and the massive struggle to restore press freedom to unban the people’s paper
The last issue of the Daily Worker before it was banned (left), editor William Rust (right)
As protests erupt over Henry Nowak’s murder, ANDREW MURRAY argues that anger is being exploited to advance a wider racist and anti-immigration agenda
CARLOS MARTINEZ explains the sound case for car manufacturing co-operation with China
The National Emergency Briefing outlines the need for urgent action to address environmental crisis, says PAUL DONOVAN, warning that there’s no time to indulge the arguments of the fossil-fuel-funded climate-change deniers
Campaigners say criticism of Labour MP Stephen Morgan’s position on Gaza has been met with police intervention and cancelled opportunities for debate. HESTER WOLFE reports
The Committee for the Defence of Iranian People’s Rights warns of escalation danger in Iran war
BANS on left media seems to be all the rage in eastern Europe. But there was a time when the main left newspaper in Britain faced a similar challenge.
The Daily Worker, forerunner of today’s Morning Star, played cat and mouse with censors, libel suits, grizzly judges — one was described in the paper as a “bewigged puppet” — and eventually, an outright ban, from its first day of publication, January 1 1930.
Indeed the appointment as “business manager” or editor of the paper, was once guaranteed a surefire spell in prison, usually Pentonville and considered part of the job description.
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