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
AS a modern-day Aesop’s Fable might put it, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has laboured mightily and brought forth a mouse. With a majority of around 156 MPs at Westminster, her Budget on Wednesday missed a golden opportunity to begin fixing Britain’s big social and economic problems.
These include 14 million people in poverty (including four million children); six million patients on hospital waiting lists; 1,290,000 people and families on housing waiting lists; and public services run down or privatised.
Led by the Tories and their right-wing press, much of the public debate before, during and after Budget day focused on Labour’s plans to increase employers’ National Insurance contributions (NICs).
RMT’s former president ALEX GORDON explains why his union supports defence diversification and a just transition for workers in regions dependent on military contracts, and calls on readers to join CND’s demo against nuclear-armed submarines on June 7



