SOLOMON HUGHES recommends Sunjeev Sahota’s recent novel set in a trade union election campaign for its fresh approach to what unites and divides workers, but wishes the union backdrop was truer to life
WHEN Sir Keir Starmer said Margaret Thatcher had effected “meaningful change” he was, briefly, in accord with majority opinion.
If Thatcher transformed post-war Britain she was not the first. Clement Attlee, who led the post-war Labour government that introduced the National Health Service and nationalised the key industries — rail and road transport, coal and steel — that were essential if the profitability of British capitalism was to continue, was first.
His predecessor, Winston Churchill, wanted to preserve Britain’s imperial position and even set in motion plans to mobilise the defeated Wehrmacht once again against the Soviet Union.
BEN CHACKO says in different ways, the centenary of the General Strike and that of Fidel Castro’s birth point to priority tasks for the British left in the coming year
Starmer sabotaged Labour with his second referendum campaign, mobilising a liberal backlash that sincerely felt progressive ideals were at stake — but the EU was then and is now an entity Britain should have nothing to do with, explains NICK WRIGHT
The left must avoid shouting ‘racist’ and explain that the socialist alternative would benefit all



