As tens of thousands return to the streets for the first national Palestine march of 2026, this movement refuses to be sidelined or silenced, says PETER LEARY
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The myth of the labour market
PROF KEITH EWING and LORD JOHN HENDY QC explain there can be no simple labour market under the free market: humans are humans, not inanimate commodities to be traded. To overcome this nonsense we need to reinvigorate the concept and practice of collective bargaining
In Britain, nine million people in poverty live in working households. Since the pandemic we have seen how the most valuable of our key workers, on whom we all depend, suffer low wages, insecurity of employment and the highest risk of illness and death.
If the government really wanted to address public finances, improve living standards and begin economic recovery, it would increase its borrowing for investment, argues MICHAEL BURKE
MATT KERR takes a winter journey through poetry, labour and memory, from Glasgow to Newcastle, arguing that our radical past isn’t something to revere from a distance, but a tool still meant to be used
One of Canada’s most revered politicians is a native of Falkirk but is relatively unknown in his original homeland. KENNY MacASKILL tells his story
Labour prospects in May elections may be irrevocably damaged by Birmingham Council’s costly refusal to settle the year-long dispute, warns STEVE WRIGHT
HENRY FOWLER and ROB POOLE explain the significance of today’s Megapicket
THERE are a number of expressions which are particularly grating, especially when spoken by comrades.
Hearing the Prime Minister referred to affectionately as “Boris” is one, the use of the phrase “labour market” is another.
The phrase “labour market” gives a legitimacy to a capitalist mythology in which buying and selling labour is a natural and unalterable part of the human condition, in which humans who work for a living are no more than disposable “human resources” and in which those who sell and those who buy labour have some equivalence of bargaining power as they contemplate the wares on the stalls in the “labour market.” These myths are unrelated to the reality of capitalism.
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