After years hidden away, Oldham’s memorial to six local volunteers who died fighting fascism in the Spanish civil war has been restored to public view, marking both a victory for campaigners and a renewed tribute to the town’s proud International Brigade heritage, says ROB HARGREAVES
ON the face of it there may not seem to be much to link the protest for the vote that became the Peterloo Massacre on Monday August 16 1819 and the Extinction Rebellion (XR) protests in central London during the first half of October 2019.
Yet both were seeking to change the world, peacefully, to exercise what might be called people power to promote reform.
The Metropolitan Police, while no doubt engaging in over-robust and possibly illegal policing tactics, didn’t kill anyone, unlike the yeomanry in Manchester two hundred years ago.
It’s not just the Starmer regime: the workers of Britain have always faced legal affronts on their right to assemble and dissent, and the Labour Party especially has meddled with our freedoms from its earliest days, writes KEITH FLETT
The government cracking down on something it can’t comprehend and doesn’t want to engage with is a repeating pattern of history, says KEITH FLETT
KEITH FLETT traces how the ‘world’s most successful political party’ has imploded since Thatcher’s fall, from nine leaders in 30 years to losing all 16 English councils, with Reform UK symbolically capturing Peel’s birthplace, Tamworth — but the beast is not dead yet



