Economists estimate extreme poverty could be drastically reduced for a fraction of global defence spending, yet military budgets continue to expand year on year, says JON TRICKETT MP, ahead of the Stop the War International Conference on Saturday
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The price of coal
At Christmas, ALISON BANVILLE is reminded of the plight of miners, those giant figures of our class history here in Britain, who still live with immense danger and suffering around the world
As Unison launches its Year of Women Workers, ANNIE COGAN-THOMAS argues that stronger organisation and collective bargaining are essential to winning equality
Trade unions, trades councils and community organisations must work together to build lasting solidarity and resistance to the far right, argues DREW GILCHRIST
Recent violence in Belfast was not spontaneous — it was built on years of failure and political neglect, argues STIOFAN O NUALLAIN
As delegates meet in Brighton this week, Unison faces pressing questions about pay, organising, workers’ rights and political representation, explains ANDY CHAFFER
Andy Burnham’s growing stature has fuelled hopes of a Labour revival – but ALAN SIMPSON warns that Britain’s crisis runs far deeper than just its leadership and traces its roots to decades of financialised capitalism
THE Christmas season has a special connection to miners for me. It all began years ago when I first read Charles Dickens’s classic, A Christmas Carol, and noticed the poignant place mineworkers have in the story.
And I was very pleased to discover that the National Coal Mining Museum has given prominence to this on their website with a page devoted to Voices in the Coalshed, a volunteer project exploring “the language and literature inspired by coalmining.”
“At one point,” they explain, “the Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to “a bleak and desert moor where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about as though it were the burial place of giants.” A horrified Scrooge is told that this is, “a place where miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth.”
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MIKE QUILLE applauds an excellent example of cultural democracy: making artworks which are a relevant, integral part of working-class lives
The historic heartland of anti-fascist resistance and mining militancy now faces a new battle — stopping Nigel Farage. ANDREW MURRAY meets ex-Labour MP Beth Winter and former Plaid leader Leanne Wood, the two socialists leading the resistance