GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
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'I see socialism and trade unionism as two sides of the same coin'
Ben Chacko talks to LEN McCLUSKEY about his new book Why You Should Be a Trade Unionist
HEART OF THE MATTER: Len McCluskey, General Secretary of Unite the Union (centre) and delegates voting on Labour’s Brexit policy during the Labour Party Conference in Brighton
DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
LEN McCLUSKEY’S slim volume Why You Should Be a Trade Unionist is a whistle-stop tour of its subject — the ethos, history and practical value of trade unionism.
Given the breadth of the issues it examines — from the birth of the Labour Party to the fight to organise precarious workers and from the Tolpuddle Martyrs to climate change — it’s amazing he managed to cram it all into 145 pages.
“It’s supposed to be brief,” McCluskey tells me when we meet to discuss the book. “There are lots of books on the history of the trade union movement. This was deliberately short in the hope it would attract young people, shop stewards, people coming into our organisations for the first time.
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