TUC general secretary PAUL NOWAK speaks to the Morning Star’s Berny Torre about the increasing frustration the trade union movement feels at a government that promised change, but has been too slow to bring it about
German elections amid capitalist crisis
With federal elections coming up in Germany in February, NICK WRIGHT takes a look at the class forces shaping the policies of the main parties, and sees little hope of a breakthrough for the left
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (left) and AfD co-leader Alice Weidel
DIANE ABBOTT exposes the misconceptions, rumours and downright lies perpetrated around immigration issues
With 12,000 fewer teachers since 2010 and dwindling resources, Scotland’s schools desperately need investment to support diverse learners rather than empty promises from politicians, writes ANDREA BRADLEY
Reversing outsourcing is the pre-election promise the government must honour, says Unison general secretary CHRISTINA McANEA
EMAN ABU ZAYED reminisces about the perilous time her family and neighbours endured in northern Gaza and how they were forced, in fear of their lives, to flee south
The EIS president who defended Marxist politics in the 1980s fought Thatcherite educational policies while organising Teachers for Peace rallies and ensuring Morning Star circulation in Scotland’s pit villages and factories, writes JOHN FOSTER
CHANCELLOR Olaf Scholz’s three-party class cuddle coalition has collapsed. The unholy assembly of Scholz’s Social Democrat Party (SPD), the petit bourgeois Greens and the neoliberal Free Democrats has disintegrated under the burden of Germany’s growing economic crisis and the problems facing the German model of managed capitalism.
One expression of the break with the recent past is the rise, within the opposition Christian Democrat Party (CDU), of its latest leader Friedrich Merz, whose long contest with former party leader and chancellor Angela Merkel ended with her retirement. Since then the political landscape in Germany has changed and while the full disposition of political forces will not be visible until the election is over, the outline is taking shape.
The latest opinion polls have the SPD on 16.5 per cent, the conservative CDU/CSU alliance on 24.2 per cent, the Greens on 12 per cent, the neoliberal FDP on 3.5 per cent ,the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) on 20.5 per cent, Die Linke on 4 per cent and Bundnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) on 7 per cent.
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