Israel continues to operate with impunity in what seems to be a brutal and protracted experiment, while much of the world looks on, says RAMZY BAROUD
The two kinds of social democracy
NICK WRIGHT looks at the problems Labour governments face
Former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey
A new report by Amnesty International pulls no punches in highlighting the Labour government’s human rights violations of those on benefits, says Dr DYLAN MURPHY
With Reform UK surging and Labour determined not to offer anything different from the status quo, a clear opportunity opens for the left, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
A recent Immigration Summit heard from Lord Alf Dubs, who fled the Nazis to Britain as a child. JAYDEE SEAFORTH reports on his message that we need to increase public empathy with desperate people seeking asylum
By sticking together, working collectively and building the union, we can weather any uncertainty ahead, writes general secretary of Usdaw PADDY LILLIS
The announcement of a Women’s Justice Board should be cautiously welcomed, writes SABINA PRICE, but we need to see a recognition that our prison system is in crisis and disproportionately punishes some of the most vulnerable people in society
Cuba Solidarity Campaign secretary BERNARD REGAN says the inhuman blockade of Cuba not only continues, but the Donald Trump administration is ratcheting up aggression against both Havana and Latin America more widely
LABOUR’s chancellor of the exchequer Denis Healey is rightly regarded as a heavyweight among post-war politicians. An ardent communist at Oxford before the second world war, Healey was among the brightest of his generation — schooled in Marxist dialectics and the anti-fascist political culture of that era, trained by the Communist Party in a period when intellectuals were drawn to a party whose main cadres were factory workers and miners and whose heroes fought in the International Brigades.
His communism did not survive the war which saw him promoted through the ranks. He was demobbed as a major and, still in uniform, told delegates to the 1945 Labour Party conference: “the upper classes in every country are selfish, depraved, dissolute and decadent.”
The Cold War saw him as top functionary of the Labour Party’s international department at a time when this body marched in lockstep with British and US intelligence services as these organisations collaborated with the operatives of the Gehlen nazi intelligence apparatus in a futile effort to stem the advance of socialism in the countries that had been liberated by the Red Army. A not subsidiary function was to advise on the management of Britain’s colonies.
More from this author
The left must avoid shouting ‘racist’ and explain that the socialist alternative would benefit all
The left must confront both far-right bigotry and the undeniable problems the exploitation of migrant workers by the ruling class creates — but there are few lessons from the global left on how to strike this balance, laments NICK WRIGHT
Xenophobic hysteria over the statistically insignificant number of small-boat crossings deliberately conceals how capitalism manipulates population flows for profit — if we can explain that, we’ll beat the right, argues NICK WRIGHT
NICK WRIGHT delicately unpicks the eloquent writings on art of an intellectual pessimist who wears his Marxism lightly
