SOME £5,849 arrived in my postbag in the last fortnight, including £50 from a Weymouth reader who urges us to continue to “challenge comfort zones.”

Well, comrades, I’m going to double-down on that. 

Yes, we can chalk up some recent successes. Our regular monthly Fighting Fund has yet again reached its target.

Sales of the e-edition are rising. And a new home delivery service is helping to get the paper into the hands of readers who cannot get to the newsagents.

But the uncomfortable reality is that if we don’t raise another 62 grand, the Morning Star may not survive the Covid crisis. 

“I cannot afford to lose my daily dose of labour movement news,” said a retired Unite member in south London along with £100.

£20 arrived from a Wigan reader for “galvanising the left to help stop the slide to the right in the Labour Party.” 

Thanks also to the reader in Barnsley who sent us a fiver, the Scouser who gave us £100, and the couple who stumped up two grand but wish to remain anonymous.

£100 came from a supporter in Scarborough who’s been reading the paper since the 1950s, and a Swindon reader sent £100 for “keeping me sane.”

For 90 years, the Morning Star has stood with the working class at home and opposed colonialism and imperialism abroad.

Now, more than ever, we need you to get out your bank card or cheque book, break open that piggy bank and help keep the flame of socialism burning brightly in these dark times.

Calvin Tucker is Morning Star campaigns manager.