Labour will find increases in the state pension age are unacceptable, just as cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance, personal independence payments and universal credit are — it needs to change direction immediately, writes PCS general secretary FRAN HEATHCOTE
China’s democracy: how the National People’s Congress works
Western media dismisses the National People’s Congress while ignoring its extensive consultation processes, massive public participation mechanisms, and a tiered structure involving millions of deputies, explains JENNY CLEGG
Closing session of the National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, March 11, 2025
CEREN SAGIR reports from the CND fringe meeting during the Labour conference, where speakers slammed a system where £99 billion nuclear arsenal replacement costs are ring-fenced while the two-child benefit cap remains
CND’s Stop the Nuclear Nightmare conference in Glasgow will be an important step towards destroying the false arguments that weapons and war spending will lead to job creation and prosperity, rather than bringing Armageddon closer, writes SIMON BARROW
KIM JOHNSON MP places the campaign in the context of the history of the working-class battles of the 1980s, and explains why, just like Orgreave and the Shrewsbury Pickets before it, justice today is so important for the struggles of tomorrow
REBECCA LONG BAILEY MP writes that it is time not just to adopt policies that will revitalise the lives of workers, but speak honestly and openly about whose side we are on and who the Labour Party is for: the millions, not the millionaires
All the areas that cause working people to feel insecure have to be addressed, through a return to unashamedly pro-worker politics, if the horror of a Farage government is to be avoided, writes IAN LAVERY MP
CHINA’S nearly 3,000-member National People’s Congress (NPC) has just gathered for its annual meeting in Beijing. Western mainstream media continually disparages China’s main legislature as a “rubber stamp parliament” — mindlessly repeating the phrase to numb readers’ minds to any thought other than that China must be a dictatorship.
That there are other forms of democracy — the idea of democratic centralism, deliberative democracy, has been around for over 100 years — the mainstream media cannot comprehend.
True, the NPC only meets for two weeks a year and never seems to reject any piece of legislation put before it. However, the reason why laws are passed unanimously is that they undergo a prior long and arduous process of deliberation, consultation and revision to ensure disagreements and differences are addressed and ultimately consensus is reached.
More from this author
We cannot understand today’s world without understanding the rise of China – and we cannot understand China without understanding how it was shaped by the second world war, writes JENNY CLEGG
JENNY CLEGG reports from a Chinese peace conference bringing together defence ministers, US think tanks and global South leaders, where speakers warned that the erosion of multilateralism risks regional hotspots exploding into wider war
JENNY CLEGG sets out and then responds to eight key doubts about the Brics+ alliance in light of the developments at Kazan, arguing it represents a significant challenge to US hegemony and provides a path towards a multipolar world
JENNY CLEGG pays tribute to a remarkable woman who was a pioneer in bringing about greater understanding between China and the West
