After years hidden away, Oldham’s memorial to six local volunteers who died fighting fascism in the Spanish civil war has been restored to public view, marking both a victory for campaigners and a renewed tribute to the town’s proud International Brigade heritage, says ROB HARGREAVES
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Media attacks on the left are nothing new
From the Chartists to left-wing councils in the ’80s to Tony Benn, all have received their share of vitriol from the right-wing press, says KEITH FLETT
Media attacks on leftwingers are nothing new. Tony Benn was often vilified in a similar manner to Jeremy Corbyn today
While pretending to seek peace, Europe is heading toward a collision course with Russia – using security guarantees, troop deployments, expropriation and censorship as tools, writes SEVIM DAGDELEN
Alba party leader KENNY MacASKILL makes some suggestions on how to save our pubs and reduce irresponsible drinking
The catastrophe unfolding in Gaza – where Palestinians are freezing to death in tents – is not a natural disaster but a calculated outcome of Israel’s ongoing blockade, aid restrictions and continued violence, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
Opinion polls point to electoral collapse, parliamentary rebellion and a looming leadership challenge as Starmer’s Labour haemorrhages working-class support and the far right exploits the vacuum left by a hollowed-out party, says NICK WRIGHT
The long-term effects of chemical weapons such as Agent Orange mean that the impact of war lasts well beyond a ceasefire
VICTOR SERGE, the anarchist turned Bolshevik, and later critic of the direction the Russian Revolution was to take, wrote towards the end of his life in the late 1940s: “On several occasions a press with a vast circulation has hurled filth at me because I spoke the truth.”
It is a reminder that attacks on left-wing activists and writers by media owned by the rich and powerful are nothing new.
Indeed in the 1840s the leaders of the Chartist movement were often to be found being vilified in the press. Particular attention was paid, by Punch for example, to caricaturing the black leader of London Chartism in 1848 William Cuffay.
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