Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER
In tribute to an unflinching class fighter and stalwart of the NUM
Remembering KEN CAPSTICK, vice-president of the National Union of Mineworkers Yorkshire Area
Ken Capstick, former vice-chairman of the NUM’s Yorkshire Area
A judge in a German court ruled that the ban activity imposed on renowned Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah was unlawful, reports LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI
At the very moment Britain faces poverty, housing and climate crises requiring radical solutions, the liberal press promotes ideologically narrow books while marginalising authors who offer the most accurate understanding of change, writes IAN SINCLAIR
From Gaza protest bans to proscribing Palestine Action, political elites are showing a crisis of confidence as they abandon Roy Jenkins’s apologetic approach for Suella Braverman’s aggressive ‘hate march’ rhetoric, writes PAUL DONOVAN
ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the legal case behind this weekend’s Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival and the lessons for today
Ben Chacko talks to RMT leader EDDIE DEMPSEY about how the key to fixing broken Britain lies in collective sectoral bargaining, restoring unions’ ability to take solidarity strike action and bringing about the much-vaunted ‘wave of insourcing’
The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON
THE labour and trade union movement has lost one of its most respected activists with the death of Ken Capstick, who for more than half-a-century was a tower of strength in the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and close friend and comrade to former NUM president Arthur Scargill.
Capstick, 84, died in Bulgaria where he was visiting his son David. He was born in the Yorkshire mining community of Hemsworth and trained as an electrician in the coalmining industry, becoming an activist in the NUM. He worked at Park Hill colliery in Wakefield. When Park Hill closed in 1982 he transferred to the huge Selby coalfield.
A decade earlier he was involved in the Battle of Saltley Gate, when engineering workers in the Midlands downed tools to reinforce striking miners picketing a coking depot, successfully closing it down.
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With solidarity coming in from across Britain and the world, PETER LAZENBY speaks to the people who made Christmas 1984 a celebration of working-class resistance in Britain’s striking coalmining communities