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
Should socialists vote Labour under Starmer?
We Labour members may ‘stay and fight’ inside the party, but if Starmer does well at the next election, it will now explicitly be on the basis of his gratuitous and open repudiation of socialist values and principles — we cannot vote for that, argues ADAM LEWINSKI
![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
FOLLOWING from conference, Keir Starmer’s office and their assorted press contacts appeared buoyant about the heckling he had received throughout his speech.
Bizarrely, the heckling appeared to have been factored into his performance following a tense conference in which the Labour right gerrymandered, rigged and corrupted disciplinary processes and CLP delegate AGMs to secure a narrow win for Starmer on several proposed rule changes, designed to disempower members and hand uncontested authority to MPs.
In a clearly premeditated press briefing, Starmer supporters told journalists that delegates had heckled the leader during a section of his speech in which he had discussed the death of his mother — an out-and-out fabrication which was clearly at odds with the video footage of the event. The press, of course, blindly printed these lies anyway.
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