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
ARMED Forces Minister James Heappey said at a Conservative Party fringe meeting that Britain would probably have to “hold its nose” and do a deal with the Taliban.
Addressing a packed meeting on Afghanistan, the minister showed how far the Conservative leadership is drifting away from the “neoconservative,” interventionist approaches they embraced after September 11 2001.
Heappey was addressing a meeting of Conservative Friends of Afghanistan, which was “marking the 20th anniversary of British troops in Afghanistan,” but did so like the wake for a failed policy.
BEN CHACKO says in different ways, the centenary of the General Strike and that of Fidel Castro’s birth point to priority tasks for the British left in the coming year
Austerity in a red tie is still austerity, warns RAMONA McCARTNEY of the People’s Assembly – rally with us to demand different choices
US General Stanley McChrystal has been invited to advise on creating a ‘team of teams’ for healthcare transformation. His credentials? He previously ran interrogation bases where Iraqis were stripped naked and beaten, reports SOLOMON HUGHES



