ANDREW MURRAY wonders what the great communist foe of Oswald Mosley would make of today’s far-right surge, warning that while the triumph of Farage and ‘Robinson’ is far from inevitable, placing any faith in Starmer in an anti-fascist front is a fool’s errand
Unions need women and women need unions
As 65 per cent of the public-sector workforce are female, this puts them on the front line of the struggle against privatisation and de-regulation — unions must centre women workers for an effective fightback, writes HELEN O'CONNOR
Low pay, scandalously low levels of sick pay and the failure to grant paid carers’ leave are all issues that plunge working women and families into poverty and are driving increasing numbers of families to food banks and homelessness.
LOTTE COLLETT welcomes the arrival of a new party for the left, a vehicle for councils to finally fight for progressive policies on housing, green spaces and public facilities, rather than administering cuts and misery from central government
KEVAN NELSON reports back from a delegation to the epic celebrations for the anniversary of Vietnam’s 1945 revolution, where British communists found a thriving, prosperous socialist country, brimming with ambition and well-earned national pride
Our economic system is broken – and unless we break with the government’s obsession with short-termist private profit, things are destined to get worse, warns Mercedes Villalba
Following the resignation of Nepali Prime Minister KP Oli amid mass youth-driven protests, different narratives have circulated which simplify and misrepresent the complexities and reality on the ground in Nepal at the roots of this crisis, argue VIJAY PRASHAD and ATUL CHANDRA
The US is desperate to stop Honduras’s process of social and democratic change, writes TIM YOUNG
THE 1980s under Margaret Thatcher marked a regressive period for working-class people as a whole — and women in particular.
The conditions were laid down for a savage assault on the public sector. Competitive tendering was laid out in the provision of domestic, catering and laundering services, which led to the super-exploitation of outsourced hospital workers that we see today.
Monetarist policies, economic deregulation, the slashing of social security, privatisation of public services and anti-union legislation had a devastating impact through deindustrialisation and unemployment rose to three million. State benefits including child benefit were cut and child poverty doubled as Thatcher attacked working mothers for “raising a creche generation.”
More from this author
As more people on the left are now questioning the sex industry, HELEN O’CONNOR reports from a timely fringe at TUC Congress where women on the front line gave their perspective on why prostitution should never be considered ‘work’
With fascists and their supporters cynically and falsely posing as ‘defenders of women,’ the left must take violence against women seriously and gain a better understanding of women’s oppression, warns HELEN O’CONNOR
As some celebrate a pay rise, outsourced, privatised workers face continued exploitation — ending this injustice by bringing them in-house must become a top priority for the labour movement, writes HELEN O’CONNOR
HELEN O’CONNOR sees a worrying trend of women exiting the labour movement in their thousands, and warns that if this tide is not stemmed with proper and effective action, it will only be to the benefit of the capitalist class
