All the evidence shows voters want Labour to shift to the left — but initial signs from Andy Burnham are worrying on that front, cautions DIANE ABBOTT
IT’S been a long time since this country has really witnessed the phenomenon known as the Women’s Liberation Movement.
Glance at a timeline helpfully provided by the British Library, and you’ll see the launch of the contraceptive pill in 1961, real liberation made possible by the hard slog of campaigners, as was the Abortion Act of 1967. A year later, the Ford factory workers at Dagenham won equal pay.
Those burning issues, plus demands for equal job opportunities and free 24-hour nurseries, formed the agenda for the first meeting of the WLM in 1970, at Ruskin College, Oxford. More than 600 women attended: a few men ran the creche.
The pioneering activist understood that freedom could only be won through solidarity across communities. Her legacy offers vital lessons at a time when progressive politics risks losing that shared purpose
The Morning Star republishes PRAGNA PATEL’s speech at the annual commemoration of Claudia Jones on February 22 2026
Half a century after transformative laws reshaped Britain, women’s rights are again contested. This International Women’s Day is a call to remember how change was won, and to organise to defend it, says KATE RAMSDEN
Held at a last-minute undisclosed venue amid fear of disruption, a Women’s Rights Network event brought together authors and activists, offering a day of debate on feminism’s past, present and future. JADE MIDDLETON reports
WILL PODMORE welcomes the case put by a feminist, disentangling the abusive rhetoric of the trans rights debate


