There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
‘There’s criminal complacency about the attitude to fire’
Fire Brigades Union leader MATT WRACK talks to the Star about the Grenfell inquiry, the firefighters’ pay freeze and the changing role of technology
Matt Wrack speaks at a protest in Westminster, London demanding answers over the Grenfell Tower disaster
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
FIREFIGHTERS have been fighting more than just fires over the last 100 years. As the legendary Fire Brigades Union (FBU), which represents one of the most unionised workforces in the country, celebrates its centenary year, the Morning Star caught up with the union’s leader Matt Wrack at its annual conference in Brighton to see what he thinks the big fights of the next 100 years will be.
A lot has been achieved by the FBU since the union formed on October 1 1918. Back then firefighters didn’t get holiday or sick pay and lived on fire stations like “municipal slaves” in what was known as the continuous duty system. This meant firefighters were on duty all the time, with just one day off each week.
They would be expected to clean the chief fire officer’s toilet and even be disallowed the right to sleep with their own wives before a shift.
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