Mask-off outbursts by Maga insiders and most strikingly, the destruction and reconstruction of the presidential seat, with a huge new $300m ballroom, means Trump isn’t planning to leave the White House when his term ends, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
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The Tories are beefing up state powers ahead of a post-Covid world
‘SpyCops’ will centre on post-Covid protest groups, writes Bernard Regan
BEN CHACKO speaks with Knesset member OFER CASSIF about rising political violence, the prospects for peace and his continuous ‘silencing by suspension’
The City is leaning on Rachel Reeves to cut welfare spending — when what’s needed is cuts to all the benefits given to the mega rich, corporations and banks to help them not pay or blatantly dodge their fair share of tax, explains BERNIE EVANS
The choice between two Blairites to revamp the tepid centrism of our ruling party doesn’t even come as cold comfort as we wander the city streets suffering from their third decade of austerity and the fifth of wage stagnation, writes MATT KERR
ANN HENDERSON looks at the trailblazers of the Women’s Trade Union League and their successful fight for female factory inspectors — a battle that echoes in today’s workplace campaigns
HENRY FOWLER puts the strike of public-sector workers in New Zealand in the wider context of deteriorating employment conditions throughout the world’s major economies
MAT COWARD looks back at a protest 105 years ago this month, whose reporting by the media bears uncomfortable similarities with demos today
The Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill (CHIS Bill/SpyCops Bill) has moved into the House of Lords. If the Bill becomes law it will legitimise a broad range of agencies, including for example the Food Standards Agency, to authorise undercover spying.
Despite claims to the contrary it places no constraints on actions, failing to rule out murder, torture or violation of the sexual integrity of individuals.
The Tories are pushing the Bill through at a time when the Undercover Policing Inquiry, set up in 2015, to investigate undercover policing in England and Wales since 1968, has still not completed its work.
That inquiry is looking at the work of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) and is investigating the cases of male undercover police officers who entered into and maintained intimate relationships with women activists engaged in anti-racist campaigning, environmental activism, the trade unions and a range of labour-movement and left political organisations.
The revelations from the inquiry expose the fact that the overwhelming focus of the SpyCops has been on members of the trade-union and labour movement.
This evidence is backed up by recently released Cabinet papers for the 1980s which demonstrate that extensive spying took place on trade unionists under the direction of the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.
An interdepartmental Committee on “Subversion in Public Life,” composed of representatives of every major government department, discussed regular reports on the activities of trade unionists and their political affiliations and monitored their actions.
They paid special attention to unions like the CPSA (now part of PCS), NALGO (now UNISON) and the NUT (now NEU). Elsewhere, other agencies carried out spying.
A 30-year covert operation was carried out against workers in the building industry by The Consulting Association (TCA) which checked names provide to them by companies like Carillion, Balfour Beatty, Skanska, Kier, Costain, McAlpine and more than 30 other companies.
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Ways of opposing the increasingly repressive measures from the British state against protesters will be discussed at the Arise Festival. BEN HAYES reports