Secret consultation documents finally released after the Morning Star’s two-year freedom of information battle show the Home Office misrepresented public opinion, claiming support for policies that most respondents actually strongly criticised as dangerous and unfair, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
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Remembering John Smith
The late John Smith, pictured in 1993
Our groundbreaking report reveals how private rail companies are bleeding millions from public coffers through exploitative leasing practices — but we have the solutions, writes Aslef Scottish organiser KEVIN LINDSAY
With Reform UK surging and Labour determined not to offer anything different from the status quo, a clear opportunity opens for the left, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
Reform’s rise speaks to a deep crisis in Establishment parties – but relies on appealing to social and economic grievances the left should make its own, argues NICK WRIGHT
This year’s Bristol Radical History Festival focused on the persistent threats of racism, xenophobia and, of course, our radical collective resistance to it across Ireland and Britain, reports LYNNE WALSH
A maverick’s self-inflicted snake bites could unlock breakthrough treatments – but they also reveal deeper tensions between noble scientific curiosity and cold corporate callousness, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
The FBU is demanding 52 weeks of full pay for women firefighters, highlighting the unique health risks they face — and the continuing need to recruit and retain more women if policies like this are still not in place, writes SEONA HART
ON SUNDAY many will be remembering the late Labour leader John Smith, 25 years on from his death. In a counterfactual history (as part of The Prime Ministers Who Never Were, Biteback, 2011), the writer and journalist Francis Beckett imagined if he had instead recovered from his heart attack.
In this fantasy, “Smith was happy, after September 11 2001, to send British troops to Afghanistan, but he drew the line at committing himself to war in Iraq, and made common cause with the French.”
Tony Blair never rose further than education secretary — and Gordon Brown’s hopes were thwarted by his “old nemesis Ken Livingstone, to whose 10-year occupancy of No 10 we owe, among much else, our pedestrianised city centres.”
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