Labour’s persistent failure to address its electorate’s salient concerns is behind the protest vote, asserts DIANE ABBOTT
IT’S an election year. From its earliest days the Tories, Labour and SNP have been in salesperson mode, making pitches to the electorate.
But the last months of 2023 have, through the eruption of a huge street movement for peace and an exodus of councillors from a Labour Party that backs Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, thrown up new questions about that election.
Have they put the left back on the map, I ask film director Ken Loach — who since his expulsion from Starmer’s Labour (for the very Starmerist offence of failing to condemn other people who had been expelled) has helped set up the For the Many network to maintain a socialist voice in politics.
Durham Miners’ Association general secretary ALAN MARDGHUM speaks to Ben Chacko ahead of Gala Day 2025
While Reform poses as a workers’ party, a credible left alternative rooted in working-class communities would expose their sham — and Corbyn’s stature will be crucial to its appeal, argues CHELLEY RYAN
Ben Chacko talks to ALAN MARDGHUM of the Durham Miners Association about Reform UK‘s dangerous inroads into Durham’s long-standing Labour county council; why he cancelled his party membership; and the political class’s disconnect from working people



