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
New documentary charts the struggle to defend the welfare state
GLYN ROBBINS is impressed by a film about the campaigns to protect the social benefits won over decades
RESILIENCE AND EXPERIENCE: Merseyside Pensioners Association campaigning in support of striking McDonalds staff and encouraging all young workers to ‘join a union’
[Phil Maxwell Photos] 
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
PENSIONERS UNITED opens with Tony Benn describing the NHS as “pure socialism.” This marks the fundamental theme of Hazuan Hashim and Phil Maxwell’s 90-minute documentary.
Using extensive footage and interviews with grassroots campaigners, the film argues that we’re in a critical fight to defend the post-war welfare state.
The fact that most of the people making that argument are old enough to have seen dramatic changes in our society only adds weight.
More from this author
GLYN ROBBINS celebrates how tenant-led campaigning forced the government to drop Pay to Stay, fixed-term tenancies and council home sell-offs under Cameron — but warns that Labour’s faith in private developers will require renewed resistance
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GLYN ROBBINS warns that Labour are now solidly in the ‘just build more’ camp led by business interests and developers rather than tailoring policies to social need
A campaign of non-payment of energy bills has already gained significant support — it could be an important part of the emerging resistance to the Tory offensive that is hitting the streets next month, argues GLYN ROBBINS
