SOLOMON HUGHES recommends Sunjeev Sahota’s recent novel set in a trade union election campaign for its fresh approach to what unites and divides workers, but wishes the union backdrop was truer to life
IT WAS the 120th anniversary of the foundation of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) at the end of February. In 1900 delegates from trade unions and left-wing parties met on February 26 and 27 in the Memorial Hall in Farringdon Street.
The building has long since been replaced by an office block — but a plaque remains. Former Labour leader Tony Blair used the occasion to make a speech, partly about labour history and mostly about where he thinks “progressive” or centre-left opinion should go in the next 10 years.
“Who cares what Blair thinks?” is surely the reaction of most socialists.
The Gala’s core message of working-class solidarity offers renewed hope and provides the antidote to the anti-worker policies of Reform UK, argues IAN LAVERY MP
While Hardie, MacDonald and Wilson faced down war pressure from their own Establishment, today’s leadership appears to have forgotten that opposing imperial adventures has historically defined Labour’s moral authority, writes KEITH FLETT
Research shows Farage mainly gets rebel voters from the Tory base and Labour loses voters to the Greens and Lib Dems — but this doesn’t mean the danger from the right isn’t real, explains historian KEITH FLETT
KEITH FLETT traces how the ‘world’s most successful political party’ has imploded since Thatcher’s fall, from nine leaders in 30 years to losing all 16 English councils, with Reform UK symbolically capturing Peel’s birthplace, Tamworth — but the beast is not dead yet



