Apart from a bright spark of hope in the victory of the Gaza motion, this year’s conference lacked vision and purpose — we need to urgently reconnect Labour with its roots rather than weakly aping the flag-waving right, argues KIM JOHNSON MP

WHILE conventional wisdom has it that capitalism triumphed over communism in the cold war, in 2019 the journalist Aditya Chakrabortty provided a more nuanced, largely ignored, analysis.
“Communism didn’t topple capitalism, but kept it honest — and so saved it from itself,” he argued in the Guardian.
“The very presence of a powerful rival ideology frightened capitalists into sharing their returns with workers and the rest of the society, in higher wages, more welfare spending and greater public investment.”

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IAN SINCLAIR welcomes a lucid critique of a technology that reproduces and enables oppression, power, and environmental devastation

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