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One of the great democratic struggles for press freedom
PHIL KATZ relates how our forerunner, the Daily Worker, was banned and the massive struggle to restore press freedom to unban the people’s paper
The last issue of the Daily Worker before it was banned (left), editor William Rust (right)

BANS on left media seems to be all the rage in eastern Europe. But there was a time when the main left newspaper in Britain faced a similar challenge. 

The Daily Worker, forerunner of today’s Morning Star, played cat and mouse with censors, libel suits, grizzly judges — one was described in the paper as a “bewigged puppet” — and eventually, an outright ban, from its first day of publication, January 1 1930. 

Indeed the appointment as “business manager” or editor of the paper, was once guaranteed a surefire spell in prison, usually Pentonville and considered part of the job description.

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