BEN CHACKO reports on fears at TUC Congress that the provisions in the legislation are liable to be watered down even further

THE mainstream media is focused on a 24-hour cycle of the current news. Historical context and memory is at best partial.
So, for example, when it comes to Israel’s genocide in Gaza the reference point is the Hamas attack of October 7. The wider picture of 75 years since the Nakba when Palestinians were forced off land that became Israel, and the many military actions of the Israeli government since do not feature. If they did a very different understanding of what is happening now might arise.
Another example in a different way is the recent death of John Pilger, one of the leading investigative journalists of the last 50 years. Such journalism is essential if democracy is to function in anything like an effective way. Pilger received many tributes, but from Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer there was silence. They apparently could not recall anything worthy of note about the journalist.

KEITH FLETT revisits debates about the name and structure of proposed working-class parties in the past

The summer saw the co-founders of modern communism travelling from Ramsgate to Neuenahr to Scotland in search of good weather, good health and good newspapers in the reading rooms, writes KEITH FLETT

KEITH FLETT looks at the long history of coercion in British employment laws

The government cracking down on something it can’t comprehend and doesn’t want to engage with is a repeating pattern of history, says KEITH FLETT