With the death of Pope Francis, the world loses not only a church leader but also a moral compass
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Democracy: the writing on the road
Forget the shenanigans about Tory Party partying, something far more insidious is taking place — something eating away at the foundations of British democracy — and socialised distraction is just a cover for doing so, warns ALAN SIMPSON
Insulate Britain climate activists take part in a demonstration on Vauxhall Bridge in central London
LYNNE WALSH previews the Bristol Radical History Conference this weekend
Keir Starmer’s £120 million to Sudan cannot cover the government’s complicity in the RSF genocide or atone for the long shadow of British colonialism and imperialism, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE
Join the traditional march from Clerkenwell Green, which will bring together countless international workers’ organisations in a statement against the far right
Ecuador’s election wasn’t free — and its people will pay the price under President Noboa
Mountains of research show that hardcore material harms children, yet there are still no simple measures in place
We face austerity, privatisation, and toxic influence. But we are growing, and cannot be beaten
AS Boris Johnson knows all too well, insecurity is the handmaiden of authoritarianism. Create it and you erode public confidence in an array of democratic rights painfully fought for over centuries.
So it is now. Under the cloak of Covid insecurity, Brexit cock-up, climate crises and supply bottlenecks, Johnson’s government is rolling back the frontiers of democracy at an alarming rate. The libertarian right rails against having to wear masks on public transport and in shops, but says nothing about greater liberties they would gleefully remove in the grotesque Policing Bill.
The press seem happy to aid and abet this process, more enthusiastically chasing stories about the anti-mask “party” antics rather than anti-democratic ones. There is, however, an important link between the two. It is the conflict between the politics of individualism and collectivism; encapsulated, paradoxically, by the brothers Corbyn.
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ALAN SIMPSON warns of a dystopian crossroads where Trump’s wrecking ball meets AI-driven alienation, and argues only a Green New Deal can repair our fractured society before techno-feudalism consumes us all
As the ‘NRx movement’ plots to replace democracy with corporate-feudal dictatorship, Britain must pursue a radical alternative of local food security and genuine wealth redistribution to withstand the coming upheaval, writes ALAN SIMPSON
Some hard political choices must be made in Trump’s post-truth era – starting by abandoning any illusions about the ‘special relationship’ and waking up to the need for bold policy-making on the climate, argues ALAN SIMPSON
Centrist governments around the world face rejection by their electorates as neoliberalism fails to deliver the public prosperity it never promised – and the same fate awaits Labour unless it starts to deliver for those struggling to survive, says ALAN SIMPSON
