Tony Benn’s constituents chose him by an overwhelming majority — but because he had inherited a peerage, parliamentary rules declared their choice invalid, writes MAT COWARD
Disabled campaigners take pride in our tradition of resistance
On the International Day of Disabled People, ELLEN CLIFFORD looks back on the activism of Disabled People Against Cuts and assesses the prospects for the future of radical anti-austerity politics
EMOTIVE: Nathan Lee Davies is an independent living campaigner in Wrexham. His collages express the intense frustrations of inadequate social care support and depict the loneliness and isolation of disabled people in a right-wing Conservative world
The real welfare dependency is at the top of our society, says ALAN SIMPSON
Two months of student unrest have forced out India’s education minister and rattled the BJP regime. Could this be the beginning of the end for Modi, asks Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary MA BABY
Councillor SAM WHEELER says there’s a tangible shift in mood on the left in the city whose mayor has recently become PM — but there’s no room for complacency
Communist Party leaders Alex Gordon and Lorraine Douglas deliver vital medicines in trip to besieged socialist island
TUC Cymru is playing a leading role in tackling far-right ideas in the workplace, says LAURA DOEL
AT THE end of one of the hardest years in living memory, disabled campaigners are determined to make celebrations for this year’s International Day of Disabled People extra special.
After a decade of austerity and welfare reform measures deliberately designed to hit disabled people hardest, along came Covid-19 and official responses to the pandemic that explicitly rated disabled people’s lives as worth less than those of non-disabled people.
The year 2020 was also the anniversary of two important disability-related milestones: the first was the passage of the Disability Discrimination Act in 1995; the other was the founding of Disabled People Against Cuts.
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