LABOUR MP John Spellar must address questions over his possible role in meetings with Thatcher’s cabinet minister Norman Tebbit during the 1980s when he was political officer at scab union EETPU.
Lord Tebbit’s recent admissions on the scale of state spying on trade unionists – including that he was briefed in detail on their private lives – come as the power of state agents is increasing.
The government has already passed legislation – the so-called Spycops Act – allowing a wide range of state agencies to authorise personnel to break the law if doing so advances various loosely defined causes (such as maintaining “economic wellbeing”).
The General Strike exposed the power of the working class — and the limits of its leadership, writes Dr DYLAN MURPHY
Forty years on, TONY DUBBINS revisits the Wapping dispute to argue that Murdoch’s real aim was union-busting – enabled by Thatcherite laws, police violence, compliant unions and a complicit media
BEN CHACKO reports on the struggles against sexism, racism and the brutish British state that featured at Matchwomen’s Festival this year