Durham Miners’ Association chair STEPHEN GUY speaks to Ben Chacko about the Reform threat, what’s needed from Labour and why the Big Meeting will never lose its politics
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Art and politics intertwine at the Eisteddfod
MEIC BIRTWISTLE wanders through an exhibition that captures the soul of the Valleys, past and present, as Archdruids rub shoulders with Cuban ambassadors in Pontypridd
The entrance to the Eisteddfod festival 2024
![Durham Miners' Gala 2026 [Pic: Neil Terry]](https://morningstaronline.co.uk/sites/default/files/styles/desktop/public/2026-07/SSS_20260711_DURHAM_MINERS_GALA_0-21.jpg.webp?itok=NUVjowji)
Andy Burnham’s message of hope will defeat Reform if Labour delivers the New Deal for Working People in full, says JOANNE THOMAS
General Federation of Trade Unions president and bakers’ union general secretary, SARAH WOOLLEY, guides us through the GFTU’s Summer School happening this week at Quorn Grange Hotel
The government’s latest asylum proposals abandon labour movement values and fuel division by aping Reform UK, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP
Can Andy Burnham’s programme deliver a productive economy – or merely a softer version of capitalism, asks VINCE MILLS
IAN LAVERY MP warns that decades of neoliberal policies have left former industrial communities behind — but a renewed Labour commitment to working people could change the political landscape
THE beginning of the week at the National Eisteddfod saw the National Library of Wales celebrating the life of the late Labour politician Ann Clwyd. She won her constituency, Cwm Cynon, part of the “bro” or catchment area for this year’s festival, in the miners’ strike of 1984. Before her death, she had contributed 260 boxes of material to the library’s political archive.
A controversial figure in Welsh politics, her major feat was to be elected in Cwm Cynon, the first female MP to represent a south Wales industrial Valleys seat, and then only the fourth female MP in Welsh history.
And so it was totally fitting to see Wales’ first female first minister, Eluned Morgan, on the panel, and describing Clwyd as “a fighter and one who was willing to upset people if necessary for an issue she believed in.”
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