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
Strikes at home and war abroad: 1973 meets 2023
A proxy war raged in Vietnam between the West and East, while strikers took on a Tory government — JOHN ELLISON considers the similarities
YEAR OF UNREST: Union marchers on the mass May Day demo, 1973
Morning Star international editor ROGER McKENZIE says Trump’s ceaseless belligerence is a desperate effort to prevent the emergence of a multilateral world
Don’t dismiss Lebanon as a side theatre of this war, warns SEVIM DAGDELEN — there are signs Israel has expansion in mind, and it has demonstrated its willingness to expel and kill whole populations
The media present Starmer as staying out of Trump’s war — but we’re already deeply involved in a conflict that sees the US and Israel kill civilians on a huge scale, argues IAN SINCLAIR
LINDA PENTZ GUNTER reports on this week’s conference unveiling the findings of the Gaza Tribunal established by Jeremy Corbyn
CHRISTOPHE IMMER of the Morning Star’s German sister paper Junge Welt reports on a Berlin conference on the politics of art and the legacy of Marxist critic Hans Hess
IF a comparison between today’s political issues and developments and those of just half a century ago seems a peculiar historical exercise, the fact remains that the early months of 1973 and those of the present year have features in common.
This year, of course, we have been witnessing rapid price inflation and much industrial action affecting the railways, health service, schools, universities, Royal Mail, civil servants and more — against a background of Conservative harsh austerity rule for the past 13 years.
As 1973 began, a Conservative government had been in place since June 1970, with dour Edward Heath at the Downing Street helm. Inflation was then rising rapidly too. On January 6 the Morning Star’s headline was “Steak for rich — scrag for pensioners.”
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PATRICK CHURA reflects on the mass murder of civilians in wartime and his own visit, 10 years ago, to My Lai where US soldiers slaughtered over 500 men, women, children and infants
The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON
KYRIL WHITTAKER looks at what guides Vietnam 50 years after reunification
LOGAN WILLIAMS believes there are lessons to be learned from Vietnam’s education system whose excellence is recognised internationally