Labour’s persistent failure to address its electorate’s salient concerns is behind the protest vote, asserts DIANE ABBOTT
What Marx and Engels found at the Victorian beach: spies and temperance campaigners
The founders of communism did like to be beside the seaside — KEITH FLETT takes look at some of Marx’s holiday correspondence from 150 years ago
WITH many holidaymakers — time and money allowing — set to come to Britain again this year, it’s interesting to look back to some of the seaside experiences of Marx and Engels.
Both were great enthusiasts for English seaside resorts, although not often together.
The issue of government spies and infiltrators into radical and labour movement organisations is a current concern. It is, however, nothing new.
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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
From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT
The youngest daughter of Karl Marx and her unwavering humanity in the face of injustice remain relevant for our times, writes DANA MILLS
Modern Christmas as we know it, with its trees, dinner menu, cards and time off from work, only dates back to the early days of modern socialism as we know it, writes KEITH FLETT, checking in on Marx, Engels and the Chartists in the 1800s



