SOLOMON HUGHES recommends Sunjeev Sahota’s recent novel set in a trade union election campaign for its fresh approach to what unites and divides workers, but wishes the union backdrop was truer to life
RED FLAGS everywhere, thousands marched along through the drizzly weather and puddled streets. Many bent figures hobbled with canes, some were in wheelchairs next to a younger set sitting proudly on their fathers’ shoulders or in strollers. Then another big group of young people arrived, some singing or chanting leftist demands.
Most spoke German but many Turkish, English and a dozen other languages mixed in. They all moved past the rows of political stalls and snack booths, a majority had red carnations for the ring of graves and, in a brick semicircle, urns with names which once resounded well beyond Germany from 1900 to 1990.
One section is for those who fought and died in Spain. But the masses of red flowers for Karl Liebknecht and, even more for Rosa Luxemburg, was higher than I have ever seen them. Both were murdered 100 years ago.
Peter Mitchell's photography reveals a poetic relationship with Leeds



