MARK TURNER wallows in the virtuosity of Swansea Jazz Festival openers, Simon Spillett and Pete Long
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Unfinished business
WILL PODMORE explores new biography that appeared without the involvement of Mick Lynch himself
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch joins the RMT picket line outside Newcastle Central station July 22, 2023
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Reviews of new releases by Jens Lekman, Big Thief, and Christian McBride Big Band
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Mick Lynch: the making of a working-class hero
Gregor Gall, Manchester University Press, £20
GREGOR GALL is Visiting Professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Leeds and author of Bob Crow: socialist, leader, fighter (2017) among other books. This is a useful biography of Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. It is also a study of the relationship between trade union struggles and the struggle for socialism.
It should be said at the start that the RMT did not authorise this book, as Gall acknowledges in an appendix: “On August 23 2022, Lynch was approached to be interviewed for the writing of this book... the response on September 2 was that ‘he is not interested in participating in this project’.”
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