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
Trump and his impossible return to the past
In an act of desperation, Trump is trying to stop the clock to revive the ‘golden age’ of imperialism, writes ATILIO A BORON
Cartoon: Songi
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 radical return to protectionism is not only possible but necessary for an empire facing an undeniable decline. It has been denounced by critical analysts but certified by leading intellectuals of the US Establishment, such as Zbigniew Brzezinski in a 2012 text and, subsequently, by several documents of the Rand Corporation.
Decline, or dissolution, if you prefer, came hand in hand with critical domestic factors: the slow growth of the economy, the loss of competitiveness in global markets, and the gigantic indebtedness of the federal government. If in 1980 the US federal government’s debt-to-GDP ratio was 34.54 per cent, today it has reached an astronomical level of 122.55 per cent. To this must be added the intractable balance of the trade deficit, which continues to grow and in 2024 amounted to $131.4 billion, representing roughly 3.5 per cent of the GDP. This is the case because the US consumes more than it produces.
To this constellation of domestic factors of imperial weakening should be added the deterioration of democratic legitimacy. The latter was highlighted by the January 6 2021 assault on the Capitol and by the more recent widespread pardons granted by Trump in favour of some 1,500 attackers who had been convicted by the US judiciary. Instead of bipartisan consensus, today, there is a huge rift undermining the political system, of which Trumpism is but one expression.
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