Mask-off outbursts by Maga insiders and most strikingly, the destruction and reconstruction of the presidential seat, with a huge new $300m ballroom, means Trump isn’t planning to leave the White House when his term ends, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
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How Blair conned the unions
After a conciliatory promise to keep anti-strike laws but strengthen union recognition, Blair backtracked — and many accused him of colluding with big business. New evidence shows that indeed he was, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
BEN CHACKO speaks with Knesset member OFER CASSIF about rising political violence, the prospects for peace and his continuous ‘silencing by suspension’
The City is leaning on Rachel Reeves to cut welfare spending — when what’s needed is cuts to all the benefits given to the mega rich, corporations and banks to help them not pay or blatantly dodge their fair share of tax, explains BERNIE EVANS
The choice between two Blairites to revamp the tepid centrism of our ruling party doesn’t even come as cold comfort as we wander the city streets suffering from their third decade of austerity and the fifth of wage stagnation, writes MATT KERR
ANN HENDERSON looks at the trailblazers of the Women’s Trade Union League and their successful fight for female factory inspectors — a battle that echoes in today’s workplace campaigns
HENRY FOWLER puts the strike of public-sector workers in New Zealand in the wider context of deteriorating employment conditions throughout the world’s major economies
MAT COWARD looks back at a protest 105 years ago this month, whose reporting by the media bears uncomfortable similarities with demos today
NEWLY released papers from the New Labour government elected in 1997 show how Blair sold out the unions on the key issue of recognition, overruling his own ministers to side with the CBI in a move that stopped a key reform dead.
Labour’s 1997 manifesto said “the key elements of the trade union legislation of the 1980s will stay — on ballots, picketing and industrial action,” so Thatcher’s anti-union laws would stay — but he also promised that “people should be free to join or not to join a union. Where they do decide to join and where a majority of the relevant workforce vote in a ballot for the union to represent them, the union should be recognised.”
New Labour offered the unions a compromise: continued restrictions on strikes, but a big prize in legally enforceable union recognition, which would have been a game changer.
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