The CPB's congress aims to build the united front against monopoly capitalism, utilising the YCL’s promising new generation of militants — but our party remains far from the strength history requires of it, despite recent progress, writes JOHNNIE HUNTER 

In the face of funding cuts, closures and a shift into women’s centres providing criminal justice-only services rather than a holistic approach, RUTH HUNT urges women to protect existing resources, volunteer and build new networks of support

Apart from a bright spark of hope in the victory of the Gaza motion, this year’s conference lacked vision and purpose — we need to urgently reconnect Labour with its roots rather than weakly aping the flag-waving right, argues KIM JOHNSON MP

Once again, working people have been betrayed with false promises about jobs in an industry that is actually making climate change worse, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

The UN is not only in need of structural change, a fundamental mindset revolution is also required – and it’s China that points the way with its Global Governance Initiative, argues ROGER McKENZIE

JOHN GREEN welcomes a remarkable study of Mozambique’s most renowned contemporary artist

Organised workers at the notoriously anti-union global giant are scoring victory after victory, and now international bodies are pitching in to finally force this figurehead of corporate capitalism to give in to unionisation, writes EMILIO AVELAR

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

Digital ID means the government could track anyone and then limit their speech, movements, finances — and it could get this all wrong, identifying the wrong people for the wrong reasons, as the numerous digital cockups so far demonstrate, warns DYLAN MURPHY

Huge protests against corruption and preventable deaths during flooding have rocked the government — the masses are not likely to be able to take direct control in their own interests yet, writes KENNY COYLE, but it’s a promising show of people power

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

JIM JUMP looks forward to the International Brigade Memorial Trust AGM taking place in Belfast later this week where the spirit of solidarity will be rekindled

ALAN MORRISON celebrates life and work of the late Tony Harrison, 1937-2025

STEPHEN ARNELL looks back to when protesters took to the streets in London demand to Irish liberty, fair pay and free speech — and wonders what’s changed in 138 years

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

If we can tackle the big issues, like delivering decent public services and affordable state-built and owned housing by making the richest pay a fair amount of tax, Labour can win back the trust and support of the electorate, argues ANDY McDONALD MP

Thousands of Palestine protesters march on eve of Labour conference 

We cannot refuse to abolish the unjustifiable two-child benefit cap that pushes children into poverty while finding billions of pounds for defence spending — the membership and the public expect better from Labour, writes JON TRICKETT MP

In Washington, the willingness to accept an open war with Russia is growing — at Europe’s expense. While Nato states are being drawn into confrontation, Europe risks becoming the battlefield of a potential world war, warns SEVIM DAGDELEN

ALAN McGUIRE welcomes a biography of the French semiologist and philosopher

Two-hundred years ago, on September 27 1825, the world’s first passenger railway line was opened between Stockton and Darlington. MICK WHELAN, general secretary of Aslef, the train drivers’ union, reflects on the history – and the future – of Britain’s railway industry

ALEX HALL is frustrated by a book that ducks a clear definition of terrorism and fails to perceive the role of the state in sponsoring it

Tragic loss of young footballer sparks fresh scrutiny of ground safety standards

Including races at Newmarket, Haydock and Ripon

CLIVE HASWELL introduces the latest edition of Cardiff’s left-wing conference, which will take a broad and non-sectarian approach to who the left should vote for, welcoming approaches from all major progressive parties that hope to transform the world

As extremist hate spreads and disillusion deepens, the labour movement must offer more than resistance — it must offer a future, writes MATT WRACK, general secretary of NASUWT – The Teachers’ Union

A chance find when clearing out our old office led us to renew a friendship across 5,000 miles and almost nine decades of history, explains ROGER McKENZIE

A joint statement from Derby Indian Workers’ Association and Vox Feminarum/Women’s Voices

DAVID NICHOLSON recommends a dazzling production of Bernstein’s opera set in a world where chaos and violence are greeted by equanimity

A ghost story by Mexican Ave Barrera, a Surrealist poetry collection by Peruvian Cesar Moro, and a manifesto-poem on women’s labour and capitalist havoc by Peruvian Valeria Roman Marroquin

TONY FOX invites readers to come and hear the story of the remarkable Liverpudlian International Brigader Alexander Foote

ZHANG HE highlights pressure coming from the global South for a more multilateral approach to global governance and a more equitable world order

CLAUDIA WEBBE argues that Labour gains nothing from its adoption of right-wing stances on immigration, and seems instead to be deliberately paving the way for the far right to become an established force in British politics, as it has already in Europe

Employment lawyer ALICE BOWMAN warns ‘day one rights’ include an undefined ‘initial period’ and the zero-hours contract fixes create baffling fixed-term loopholes. If the Bill doesn’t work properly and deliver, Labour is doomed

In a speech to the 12th Xiangshan Forum in Beijing, SEVIM DAGDELEN warns of a growing historical revisionism to whitewash Germany and Japan’s role in WWII as part of a return to a cold war strategy from the West — but multipolarity will win out

DENNIS BROE gives an update on the last week of anti-austerity protests against the Macron regime, which has seen the supposedly more right-leaning Gilets Jaunes join with the unions and the left

BERNADETTE KEAVENEY announces a simplified and streamlined way to get your paper delivered daily, and a big push for new readers that we can all help make into a success

FRANCIS BECKETT introduces his new play that aims to give its audience a taste of what a far-right triumph would be

ROGER McKENZIE argues that the BRI represents a choice between treating humans as commodities or as equals — an essential project when, aside from China’s efforts, hundreds of millions worldwide are trapped in poverty

MARIA DUARTE recommends the powerful study of an underfunded reform school and the staff who struggle to do good

It is rather strange that Labour continues to give prestigious roles to inappropriate, controversy-mired businessmen who are also major Tory donors. What could Labour possibly be hoping to get out of it, asks SOLOMON HUGHES

DAVID NICHOLSON is thrilled – and shocked – by an opera that seethes and sizzles with passion and the depraved use of power

Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO reports from the start of Kunming’s Belt and Road media forum, where 200 journalists from 71 countries celebrated a new openness and optimism, forged by China’s enormous contribution to global development

The colonial mindset behind the governance of the UN is the reason for its inertia when it comes to conflict resolution, argues ROGER McKENZIE – but can China’s Global Governance Initiative point in a new direction of global equality?

Spain has joined South Africa’s ICJ genocide case against Israel while imposing weapons bans and port restrictions, moves partly driven by trade unions — proving just how effectively civil society can reshape government policy, writes RAMZY BAROUD

Politicians who continue to welcome contracts with US companies without considering the risks and consequences of total dependency in the years to come are undermining the raison d’etre of the NHS, argues Dr JOHN PUNTIS

KEVAN NELSON reports back from a delegation to the epic celebrations for the anniversary of Vietnam’s 1945 revolution, where British communists found a thriving, prosperous socialist country, brimming with ambition and well-earned national pride

LOTTE COLLETT welcomes the arrival of a new party for the left, a vehicle for councils to finally fight for progressive policies on housing, green spaces and public facilities, rather than administering cuts and misery from central government 

JAN WOOLF is beguiled by the tempting notion that Freud psychoanalysed Hitler in a comedy that explores the vulnerability of a damaged individual

Following the resignation of Nepali Prime Minister KP Oli amid mass youth-driven protests, different narratives have circulated which simplify and misrepresent the complexities and reality on the ground in Nepal at the roots of this crisis, argue VIJAY PRASHAD and ATUL CHANDRA

The US is desperate to stop Honduras’s process of social and democratic change, writes TIM YOUNG

Our economic system is broken – and unless we break with the government’s obsession with short-termist private profit, things are destined to get worse, warns Mercedes Villalba

MAYER WAKEFIELD recommends a musical ‘love letter’ to black power activists of the 1970s

The wealth of the super-rich grows by £35 million daily while our NHS and schools collapse — that’s why thousands of us will be gathering in London demanding that the billionaires foot the bill for the many crises they have caused, writes TYRONE SCOTT

MARK HAZELDEN criticises the Western narrative that the incident was an escalation of Russia’s confrontation with the West, given that Belarus, a Russian ally, warned Poland of off-course drones, and the drones were unarmed, cheap wooden decoys

The desperate French president keeps running up the same political cul-de-sac. DENNIS BROE offers an explanation

The Cuba Solidarity Campaign’s director, ROB MILLER, and its secretary, BERNARD REGAN, salute a staunch supporter of the socialist Caribbean island

From a Welsh mining village to defending our work for colonial justice at the UN in New York, Maggie Bowden’s life was an inspiring triumph, writes JEREMY CORBYN MP

Maggie Bowden was a trailblazing campaigning lawyer at Birnberg and Thompsons, women’s organiser of the Communist Party, and general secretary of Liberation

The Prime Minister’s hamfisted promotional video promising to go ‘further and faster’ coincides with Angela Rayner’s resignation over tax dodging and Mandelson’s long overdue departure over Epstein — incredible timing, writes MATT KERR

HEIDI NORMAN welcomes a new history of the Aboriginal resistance to white settlers in New South Wales

Gin Lane by William Hogarth is a critique of 18th-century London’s growing funeral trade, posits DAN O’BRIEN

Beatrice Pompe and Bernadette Dugasse have submitted a UN complaint against Labour’s deal with Mauritius, highlighting how exclusion from ancestral lands is denying their right of return and justice for historical abuses, reports ELIZABETH MISTRY

Former judge ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the details and controversy of Lucy Letby’s trial and appeal in the context of famous historical wrongful convictions that prove both the justice system and legal activists make errors

Listening to our own communities and organising within them holds the key to stopping the advance of Reform UK and other far-right initiatives, posits TONY CONWAY

Climate justice and workers’ rights movements are uniting to make the rich pay for our transition to a green economy, writes assistant general secretary of PCS JOHN MOLONEY, ahead of a major demonstration on September 20

ANYA COOK reports from a Majority conference in Newcastle last weekend featuring Jamie Driscoll and Zarah Sultana

A new report from the Citizens Advice Bureau destroys the government narrative about disabled people ‘choosing’ not to work, showing the £3,000 annual cuts will create a two-tiered system based on claim dates rather than needs, writes DYLAN MURPHY

Who you ask and how you ask matter, as does why you are asking — the history of opinion polls shows they are as much about creating opinions as they are about recording them, writes socialist historian KEITH FLETT

JOE GILL appreciates a lucid demonstration of how capital today is an outgrowth of the colonial economy

A ‘new phase’ for Starmerism is fairly similar to the old phase – only worse. ANDREW MURRAY takes a look

The plot to build a lavish Dubai-style luxury development where the rich can sun themselves on top of the mass graves of thousands is one of the most bizarre and twisted ideas to come out of the genocide in Gaza, writes ROGER McKENZIE

CHRIS HOOFE calls for support for GMB’s Potters’ Pledge campaign, aimed at making sure the historic pottery industry based in Stoke-on-Trent is supported over cheap, low-quality imports and counterfeits

Investing the £75 billion slated for defence spending on a green new deal, healthcare and education would create jobs and help communities far more than weapons spending, argues UCU general secretary JO GRADY

Speaking to the Morning Star’s Ceren Sagir, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists LAURA DAVISON outlines the threats to journalism from Palestine to Britain, and the unique challenges confronting the industry through the rise of AI

AMANDA J QUICK warns about the ever-expanding influence of the sex industry – and the harm it unleashes on both the women involved and society collectively, especially the young

Artists should not be consigned to a life of precarious working – they deserve dignity and proper workers’ rights, argues ZITA HOLBOURNE

With 121,000 vacancies and 44.8% of staff feeling unwell from work stress, the NHS 10-year plan will not succeed unless the government takes immediate action to retain existing staff, writes ANNETTE MANSELL-GREEN

Labour’s watered-down legislation won’t protect us from unfair dismissal or ban some zero-hours contracts until 2027  — leaving millions of young people vulnerable to the populist right’s appeal, warns TUC young workers chair FRASER MCGUIRE

CWU leader DAVE WARD tells Ben Chacko a strategy to unite workers on class lines is needed – and sectoral collective bargaining must be at its heart

MARTYN GRAY asks TUC congress to endorse measures that would help stop the present exploitation of seafarers

Women are a vital part of the labour movement and have much to contribute, but there’s far more to be done to make sure that our sisters’ voices are truly heard, says PHILIPA HARVEY

Reversing outsourcing is the pre-election promise the government must honour, says Unison general secretary CHRISTINA McANEA

Still the only black man to win the US Open tennis title, a statue of the legendary champion, Arthur Ashe, is now the only one remaining on Monument Avenue in his Richmond, Virginia hometown, where confederate leaders of the Civil War were also once displayed, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

MAT COWARD sings the praises of the Giant Winter’s full-depth, earthy and ferrous flavour perfect for rich meals in the dark months

The EIS president who defended Marxist politics in the 1980s fought Thatcherite educational policies while organising Teachers for Peace rallies and ensuring Morning Star circulation in Scotland’s pit villages and factories, writes JOHN FOSTER

DIANE ABBOTT exposes the misconceptions, rumours and downright lies perpetrated around immigration issues

Making sure this Labour government delivers on decent jobs, strong workplace rights and well-funded public services will defeat the easy answers to real frustrations peddled by the far right, writes JOANNE THOMAS

PAUL W FLEMING is unequivocal that Labour’s unpreparedness and resulting ambiguity on copyright in the creative industries has to be reined in with policies that will reverse the growing abuse by Big Tech AI

Our members face serious violence, crumbling workplaces and exposure to dangerous drugs — it is outrageous we still cannot legally use our industrial muscle to fight back and defend ourselves, writes STEVE GILLAN

With 12,000 fewer teachers since 2010 and dwindling resources, Scotland’s schools desperately need investment to support diverse learners rather than empty promises from politicians, writes ANDREA BRADLEY

Labour must not allow unelected members of the upper house to erode a single provision of the Employment Rights Bill, argues ANDY MCDONALD MP

In the current climate, it is vital to bust the myths and put forward the case for a humane and decent social security system that supports people, argues FRAN HEATHCOTE

UN specialist speaks out as Gaza tribunal told of atrocities

Since 2010, one in five firefighter jobs has disappeared alongside 30% funding cuts — all while climate breakdown brings record blazes and flooding. It’s time to fund our fire service properly, writes FBU general secretary STEVE WRIGHT

A just transition to Great British Railways and a clean and safe railway for all is not only desirable but also necessary. MARYAM ESLAMDOUST explains

Veteran back-rower steps in as England’s third captain of the tournament to take on Australia

On the eve of the 157th Trades Union Congress, MICK WHELAN, general secretary of Aslef, the train drivers’ union, celebrates victory in his campaign to get dignity for drivers at work

Britain’s proud asylum history, from sheltering the Kindertransport escaping Hitler to Basque children fleeing fascist Spain, required tireless campaigning against persistent opposition — and it’s up to all of us to do our part today, writes SABINA PRICE

MARIA DUARTE cherishes the flashes of absurd humour and theme of community healing in a documentary set in a Soviet-era Black Sea sanatorium

MATT WRACK issues a clarion call for a rejuvenation of public services for the sake of our communities and our young people

The people of Palestine need our solidarity in actions not words – trade unionists must give them our full support in their darkest hour, writes DANIEL KEBEDE

TOM STONE sings the praises of one of the oldest open-air festivals in Britain

While 69 per cent of Ukrainians want negotiated peace, Western leaders are cynically prolonging the war for their own strategic and economic goals, to the immense detriment of Ukraine and Europe, write BOB ORAM and MAGGIE SIMPSON 

As the Alliance of Sahel States and southern African nations advance pan-African goals, the African Union must listen and learn rather than parroting the Western line on these positive developments, writes ROGER McKENZIE

US baseless accusations of drug trafficking and the outrageous putting of a bounty on a president of a sovereign country do not bode well, reports PABLO MERIGUET

Green Party MPs stand alone in Parliament in defending Palestine Action against Labour’s proscription of the group as a terrorist organisation — an outrageous move that the Tories supported and the cowardly Lib Dems abstained on, writes ELLIOT TONG

The heroism of the jury who defied prison and starvation conditions secured the absolute right of juries to deliver verdicts based on conscience — a convention which is now under attack, writes MAT COWARD

The horrors in the Congo have much in common with Gaza’s genocide, most notably the financial and military support of the US, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

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

Snippets of news from the sporting world

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll walked away from a high-speed crash today

Payam Solhtalab talks to GAWAIN LITTLE, general secretary of Codir, about the connection between the struggle for peace, against banking and economic sanctions, and the threat of a further military attack by the US/Israel axis on Iran

While ordinary Americans were suffering in the wake of 2005’s deadly hurricane, the Bush administration was more concerned with maintaining its anti-Cuba stance than with saving lives, writes MANOLO DE LOS SANTOS

Remembering the 1787 Calton Weavers strike, MATT KERR argues that golden thread of our history needs weaving into the fabric of every community in the land

As football grapples with overloaded calendars and commercial pressure, the Mariners’ triumph reminds us why the game’s soul lives far from the spotlight, writes JAMES NALTON

Packed meeting hears that that new party must align with mass struggle beyond the ballot box, reports BEN WOODWARD

Including races at Sandown, Chester, Beverley and Chelmsford

ANDREW MURRAY recommends a volume of essays that nail the visionless, racist and neoliberal character of policy under Starmer’s Labour Party

Our charter’s demands for fair pay, affordable housing and environmental security will recruit working-class youth into the political struggle for socialism, emulating the success of the Women’s Charter, writes YCL general secretary GEORGINA ANDREWS

MIKE COWLEY welcomes half a century of remarkable work, that begins before the Greens and invites a connection to — and not a division from — nature

WILL PODMORE welcomes the case put by a feminist, disentangling the abusive rhetoric of the trans rights debate

JONATHAN TAYLOR appreciates how, for a black British musician, to walk onstage can be a rebellious act

Since 2023, Strike Map has evolved from digital mapping at a national level to organising ‘mega pickets’ — we believe that mass solidarity with localised disputes prepares the ground for future national action, writes HENRY FOWLER

Red Roses can further cement tournament favourite status when they face Samoa

The decision highlights the tension between freedom of expression and the state’s role in shaping historical memory at former concentration camps, reports LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI

US tariffs have had Von der Leyen bowing in submission, while comments from the former European Central Bank leader call for more European political integration and less individual state sovereignty. All this adds up to more pain and austerity ahead, argues NICK WRIGHT

How can we claim to be human while our countries still support and defend the massacres in Palestine, asks HUGH LANNING

ANDREW FILMER welcomes the reopening of Glasgow’s landmark theatre after a seven-year transformation

The head coach says relationship with owner Marinakis is ‘not so good’

‘Honest’ Tom Wharton’s 1682 drunken rampage through St Mary’s church haunted his political career, but his satirical song Lillibullero helped topple Catholic James II during the Glorious Revolution, writes MAT COWARD

British cross-border train fares far outstrip flights, ranking among Europe’s worst

JAMES NALTON takes a look at the German league’s move to grow its audience in Britain, and around the future of football on TV in general

DAVID HORSLEY reminds us of the roots and staying power of one of the most iconic festivals around

From hunting rare pamphlets at book sales to online panels and courses on trade unionism and class politics, the MML continues connecting archive treasures with the movements fighting for a better world, writes director MEIRIAN JUMP

The Bard commutes to work for the first time in 45 years

Every Starmer boast about removing asylum-seekers probably wins Reform another seat while Labour loses more voters to Lib Dems, Greens and nationalists than to the far right — the disaster facing Labour is the leadership’s fault, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP

ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review The Ceremony, Eddington, The Life of Chuck, and The Thursday Murder Club

Despite an over-sentimental narrative, MICHAL BONCZA applauds an ambitious drama about the Chinese rescue of British POWs in WWII

Washington plays innocent bystander while pouring weapons and intelligence into Ukraine, just as it enables the Gaza genocide — but every US escalation leaves Ukraine weaker than the neutrality deal rejected in 2022, argue MEDEA BENJAMIN and NICOLAS JS DAVIES

Mental health fears push Peers to change law on IPP torture sentences, reports Charley Allan

For those in the West, hunger is often just the familiar feeling of a growling stomach between meals — in Gaza, it has become a strategic weapon of slow, systematic and deadly destruction, writes MARC VANDEPITTE

DAVID MATTHEWS looks at what a collective future for welfare might have in store for us

ROGER McKENZIE looks at the gradual demise of US’s nefarious influence around the world and the complexity of impending freedom

We are experiencing a wave of organised, often deadly violence targeting migrants from other parts of Africa — but the poorest South Africans reject this hatred, staying true to the spirit of Ubuntu and Pan-African unity, reports NIGEL BRANKEN

The ongoing floods in Pakistan could have been largely prevented, writes ABDUL RAHMAN

With foreign media banned from Gaza, Palestinians themselves have reversed most of zionism’s century-long propaganda gains in just two years — this is why Israel has killed 270 journalists since October 2023, explains RAMZY BAROUD

At 80, Elizabeth Morley wished she could join Palestine Action’s ladder-climbing but found her perfect protest at Defend Our Juries, proving Britain’s elders won’t be silenced despite government crackdowns, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

On the release of her memoir that reveals everything except politics, Sturgeon’s endless media coverage has focused on her panic attacks, sexuality and personal tragedies while ignoring her government’s many failures, writes PAULINE BRYAN  

Thousands strike to ‘save hostages and stop military escalation’ in Gaza 

AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports on the Israeli national strike as thousands call for an end to the war

Collective action marks first time the sport has voluntarily refused to race in modern history

Corbyn and Sultana’s ‘Your Party’ represents the first attempt at mass socialist organisation since the CPGB’s formation in 1921, argues DYLAN MURPHY

PCS members face dangerous working conditions in crumbling buildings while the Common Platform IT system obstructs rather than streamlines operations — and Labour’s promised wave of insourcing has not materialised, writes SHARON McLEAN 
 

GUILLERMO THOMAS is persuaded by a scathing critique of the Church of England and its embeddedness in imperialism

JONATHAN TAYLOR attempts to disentangle the mind, self and political opinions of a successful bourgeois novelist

GORDON PARSONS is enthralled by an erudite and entertaining account of where the language we speak came from

MATTHEW HAWKINS recommends three memorable performances from Scottish dance artists Barrowland Ballet, In the Fields Project, and Wendy Houston

From anonymous surveys claiming Chinese students are spying on each other to a meltdown about the size of China’s London embassy, the evidence is everywhere that Britain is embracing full spectrum Sinophobia as the war clouds gather, writes CARLOS MARTINEZ

LAURA PIDCOCK and PAUL O’CONNELL introduces Rise, a political platform for working-class activism

TONY BURKE revels in the publication of previously unreleased tracks by the great US folksinger

White racist rioting has many an infamous precedent in Britain, writes DAVID HORSLEY

Anti-discrimination charity says players may think twice about taking penalties in future

While an as-yet-unnamed new left party struggles to be born, MAT COWARD looks at some of the wild and wonderful names of workers’ organisations past that have been lost to time

From 35,000 troops in Talisman Sabre war games to HMS Spey provocations in the Taiwan Strait, Labour continues Tory militarisation — all while claiming to uphold ‘one China’ diplomatic agreements from 1972, reports KENNY COYLE

Tennis icon set to become oldest singles competitor at Flushing Meadows since 1981 after receiving wild-card entry — yet another historic moment in a career already filled with them, writes HOWARD FENDRICH