Israel continues to operate with impunity in what seems to be a brutal and protracted experiment, while much of the world looks on, says RAMZY BAROUD
2020 was a year of movements not moments
Despite the restrictions placed on us by the pandemic, this will be remembered as a year of resistance to racism and austerity, argues socialist historian KEITH FLETT

PERHAPS for several understandable reasons the reality that 2020 has been a year of worldwide protest has been rather missing from the numerous media summaries of the last 12 months.
After all, a deadly pandemic has seized the world and led to illness and death, particularly in neoliberal economies that put profit ahead of people.
Yet protest there has been and its global nature has been dictated in part by lockdowns restricting to an extent physical protests.
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KEITH FLETT revisits the 1978 origins of Britain’s May Day bank holiday — from Michael Foot’s triumph to Thatcher’s reluctant acceptance — as Starmer’s government dodges calls to expand our working-class celebrations

From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT

Facing economic turmoil, Jim Callaghan’s government rejected Tony Benn’s alternative economic strategy in favour of cuts that paved the way for Thatcherism — and the cuts-loving Labour of the present era, writes KEITH FLETT

Starmer’s slash-and-burn approach to disability benefits represents a fundamental break with Labour’s founding mission to challenge the idle rich rather than punish the vulnerable poor, argues KEITH FLETT