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
THE first week of February saw a couple of labour movement occasions centred on Shropshire and north Wales.
It was the 200th anniversary of the event known as “Cinderloo,” where miners protesting about wage cuts were attacked by the Shropshire yeomanry. Several were killed and others put on trial at Shrewsbury.
Over two days in the same week was the long overdue appeal by building workers convicted as part of the 1972 national building workers’ strike, in which the matters at issue also took place in the Shrewsbury area.
Inspired by a hit TV show, KEITH FLETT takes a look at the murky history of undercover class war
ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the legal case behind this weekend’s Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival and the lessons for today
The government cracking down on something it can’t comprehend and doesn’t want to engage with is a repeating pattern of history, says 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



