FRAN HEATHCOTE believes that while the the Chancellor outlined some positive steps, the government does not appreciate the scale of the cost-of-living crisis affecting working-class people, whose lives are blighted by endemic low pay
THIS is a year of centenaries. Memories of the struggles of the suffragettes combining with those of the blood and the wire; of undersized Tommies marching to the sound of the guns and of the armistice that was intended to signal the end to all wars.
Yet, some things are forgotten. History is, after all, a matter of choice, of emphasis, light and shade — as well as of strictly weighed and measured evidence.
The voices of the rich, the powerful and articulate often drown out all other cross-currents, the experiences of the masses, and both the sorrows and achievements of the poor and the working people.
Millions of ordinary English people of all backgrounds consider the cross their own — abandoning it, and its left-wing history that includes the peasants’ revolt, concedes vital ground to the right, argues SIMON BRIGNELL



