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
Prague wrestles with public pride in historic socialism
The problem with the National Museum’s exhibition on the communist-governed era is that the public liked it and the values it represented too much — looking at the beggars under the bridge outside, who can blame them, writes JOHN CALLOW
Reliefs cast into 1950s gates show a socialist selection of Czech history
PAOLO SANTALUCIA reports on how an Italian region defies US pressure to end a Cuban doctors programme
HENRY FOWLER outlines the GFTU’s new 2026-27 education programme and argues that investing in trade union education is essential to building worker power, developing leaders and strengthening collective action
We need a government that invests in saving lives not destroying them, argues SOPHIE BOLT
More expensive by weight than gold, saffron is surprisingly simple to grow. MAT COWARD explains
The public inquiry is the result of more than a decade of determined campaigning. Now, those who fought for justice want the full story of government involvement and police conduct to be told, says KATE FLANNERY
The Durham Miners’ Gala is a celebration of working-class culture, but also a call to action — to rebuild workers’ collective strength, says KIM JOHNSON MP
WHEN is a museum not a museum? This is the question that the Czech National Museum poses in its new exhibition, Collections & Politics, exploring the themes and narratives that underpinned the presentation of the past under socialism.
After November 1989, those museums dedicated to the working-class movement and its leaders were closed, while the surviving institutions were overhauled and reconfigured in light of the seismic political, economic, and cultural shift to neoliberalism.
As a consequence, much was lost — destroyed, despised, or sold off to collectors — and what was left of the socialist past was shuttered away in basements and storage units, out of sight, and only brought to mind through “ironic” expositions that thoroughly de-contextualised and frequently mocked the artefacts.
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JOHN CALLOW examines what went wrong for the Czech communist party in the recent parliamentary elections, where it failed to meet the threshold to return deputies and some now talk of the party abandoning its commitment to socialism
NICK MATTHEWS recalls how the ideals of socialism and the holding of goods in common have an older provenance than you might think
Still the only black man to win the US Open tennis title, a statue of the legendary champion, Arthur Ashe, is now the only one remaining on Monument Avenue in his Richmond, Virginia hometown, where confederate leaders of the Civil War were also once displayed, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER