JOHN REES looks at why the June 20 international anti-war conference is such a vital initiative
ON the face of it there may not seem to be much to link the protest for the vote that became the Peterloo Massacre on Monday August 16 1819 and the Extinction Rebellion (XR) protests in central London during the first half of October 2019.
Yet both were seeking to change the world, peacefully, to exercise what might be called people power to promote reform.
The Metropolitan Police, while no doubt engaging in over-robust and possibly illegal policing tactics, didn’t kill anyone, unlike the yeomanry in Manchester two hundred years ago.
Inspired by a hit TV show, KEITH FLETT takes a look at the murky history of undercover class war
It’s not just the Starmer regime: the workers of Britain have always faced legal affronts on their right to assemble and dissent, and the Labour Party especially has meddled with our freedoms from its earliest days, 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
The government cracking down on something it can’t comprehend and doesn’t want to engage with is a repeating pattern of history, says KEITH FLETT


