Corbyn’s initiative for a review of Labour’s democratic structures is a welcome break from Blairite bureaucracy. But it has one notable absence: the democratic accountability of MPs and councillors.
NHS activist Dave Platts reports on the ever-worsening healthcare crisis. Tory cuts and privatisation have put the NHS on life support. We need a socialist Labour government to save our NHS.
The Left’s clear victory in the Labour NEC elections must be used as a platform for sweeping changes across the Party, Adam Booth writes. We need mandatory reselection and socialist policies.
Ben Curry looks at Theresa May’s botched cabinet reshuffle, which has further exposed the weakness of the Prime Minister and her government. The only thing keeping them together right now is the threat of Corbyn entering Downing Street.
The beginning of 2018 saw another eye-watering rise in rail prices. Private rail firms have run the network into the ground, with the public shouldering the costs. As Rob Sewell explains, the railways need to be nationalised immediately without compensation.
The Tory government is drifting from one crisis to another, divided and split. They are only being held together because they fear defeat and the election of a Corbyn-led Labour government. The Labour leaders should go on the offensive and offer an inspiring New Year’s message: to radically transform society with a bold socialist programme.
In the immediate aftermath of the tragic Grenfell fire, Theresa May promised that all families would be housed within three weeks. But six months have now passed and 4 out of 5 families made homeless by the disaster still do not have permanent homes at all. Moses Levi looks at the chaotic and inadequate response of the Tories to a disaster that they helped to create.
In the 1930s, Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson wrote a book entitled “The Town that was Murdered”, detailing the devastating impacts of the Great Depression and British capitalism’s decline on her constituency, the town of Jarrow. Today, this book’s title could easily be used to describe the situation of many other towns across the country. Lilly Cockwill looks at the particularly tragic case of Blackpool.
Early last week, Tory leaders announced that a deal on phase one of the Brexit negotiations had been struck with the EU. The problem is, nobody had informed the DUP, May’s volatile government partners. In order to keep the peace, Ben Curry writes, the Prime Minister has entangled herself even further in a web of contradictions.
Tory austerity and the deepening crisis of British capitalism has plunged hundreds of thousands into poverty, with 1.25 million people now classified as ‘destitute’ according to latest figures from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a social research charity. These mass poverty levels are a clear sign that the system is broken and cannot be reformed.
Roy Hattersley’s recent article in the Guardian offered a telling insight into the mind of the Blairites. With his semi-coherent ramblings, the former deputy Labour leader provides a perfect example of just how out of touch Labour’s so-called ‘moderates’ are from grasping the real mood in society, and how powerless their position has become.
Over the past few weeks, a series of local Labour council candidate selections have prompted various outcries of a Momentum-led ‘Labour purge’ in the mainstream media. Reza Mohammadi of the Hornsey and Wood Green CLP discusses what really happened: this was no purge, just democracy and accountability in action.