The Employment Rights Act marks a major victory for workers, but without stronger enforcement and collective organisation, its promises may fall short, says ALICE BOWMAN
REMARKABLY, for an instigator of a war in Iraq that was declared illegal by the UN, former prime minister Tony Blair is still treated as an elder statesman in Britain.
The former Labour leader was recently given a fawning interview on BBC Radio 4’s flagship morning Today programme in which he had free rein to attack current party leader Jeremy Corbyn, describing him as “existential threat” to the party.
What was not revealed in that interview is that Blair’s Institute has received £9 million from the Saudi tyrant Mohammed bin Salman, making him effectively a mouthpiece for the Gulf regime in Britain. Blair, not surprisingly, has lavishly praised the Saudi crown prince’s so-called reform policies and his brutal war in Yemen.
Italians reject controversial judiciary reforms in a referendum that boosts the left, reports NICK WRIGHT
Our political sphere, stripped of its popular component by decades of neoliberalism, sits apart from the public, writes COLL MCCAIL citing a telling parallel with the writings of French revolutionary Abbe Sieyes
Martin Taylor, the hedge-fund multimillionaire who has poured millions into pushing Labour rightwards, helped finance Lucy Powell’s supposedly dissenting campaign — suggesting her victory was not the ‘soft-left’ rebellion some have claimed, says SOLOMON HUGHES
As Saudi Arabia is hailed abroad for its ‘reforms,’ the reality for women inside the kingdom grows ever more repressive. On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, MARYAM ALDOSSARI argues it is time to stop applauding the illusion – and start listening to the women the state works hardest to silence



