TUC general secretary PAUL NOWAK speaks to the Morning Star’s Berny Torre about the increasing frustration the trade union movement feels at a government that promised change, but has been too slow to bring it about
The left, work and benefits. Eating the rich?
Starmer’s slash-and-burn approach to disability benefits represents a fundamental break with Labour’s founding mission to challenge the idle rich rather than punish the vulnerable poor, argues KEITH FLETT
Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves (second from left) during an investment roundtable discussion with Black Rock CEO Larry Fink and members of the BlackRock executive board at 10 Downing Street, London, November 21, 2024
DIANE ABBOTT exposes the misconceptions, rumours and downright lies perpetrated around immigration issues
With 12,000 fewer teachers since 2010 and dwindling resources, Scotland’s schools desperately need investment to support diverse learners rather than empty promises from politicians, writes ANDREA BRADLEY
Reversing outsourcing is the pre-election promise the government must honour, says Unison general secretary CHRISTINA McANEA
EMAN ABU ZAYED reminisces about the perilous time her family and neighbours endured in northern Gaza and how they were forced, in fear of their lives, to flee south
The EIS president who defended Marxist politics in the 1980s fought Thatcherite educational policies while organising Teachers for Peace rallies and ensuring Morning Star circulation in Scotland’s pit villages and factories, writes JOHN FOSTER
THE former Labour prime minister Harold Wilson argued that the labour movement owed more to Methodism than Marx. Socialists will dispute that but there is no doubt that in the 19th century a good deal of the imagery and words used in workers’ struggles came from the Bible. That is not a surprise when its considered that Marx’s Capital was not available in English until 1887.
One line from the Bible (Thessalonians) which was much used in the first decades of the 19th century and remains relevant now is “he that does not work neither shall he eat.”
It’s a view that is firmly lodged in the mind of right-wing social democracy. After Labour was elected in 1997, Tony Blair tried to push through welfare cuts — in that case to incapacity benefits — and suffered in May 1998 a rebellion of 80 Labour MPs.
More from this author
KEITH FLETT revisits debates about the name and structure of proposed working-class parties in the past
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
KEITH FLETT looks at the long history of coercion in British employment laws
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
