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
Latest editorial
French crisis: Macron’s desperate power play backfires spectacularly
As heavy industry flees and public-sector strikes paralyse the nation, the French leader’s increasingly desperate attempts to rule without a majority reveal the deep crisis at the heart of European liberal democracy, writes KEVIN OVENDEN
BY POPULAR DEMAND: Michel Barnier leaves
![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
“ARROGANCE made flesh.” Left-wing lawmaker Clemence Guette’s reaction to President Emmanuel Macron’s emergency address to the French nation on Thursday spoke for most of the country.
France this week is plunged into a deeper phase of ongoing, almost existential crisis. To listen to Macron, it is everyone’s fault but his own.
“I won’t shoulder other people’s irresponsibility,” snapped the popinjay whose own authoritarian recklessness has concentrated social and political tensions into the fall of his government, inability to pass a Budget, threatened financial meltdown and a sense of national calamity.
Similar stories
Italians reject controversial judiciary reforms in a referendum that boosts the left, reports NICK WRIGHT
From Reform UK to Trump, Orban and beyond, the far right is organised across borders and growing. Waiting for it to collapse is a fatal error – building an international, locally rooted left alternative is now an urgent necessity., argues ROGER McKENZIE
The desperate French president keeps running up the same political cul-de-sac. DENNIS BROE offers an explanation