Happy Birthday, Pete Seeger!
Today would have been Pete Seeger’s birthday. We remember his contributions to song and socialism.
4342 Articles by:
Mohamed Ahmed
Mohamed Ahmed is a freelance writer based in London.
Ending London’s Housing Nightmare
Unless Sadiq Khan can discover the courage to take on the profiteers driving London’s housing emergency, his victory in today’s mayoral election will mean little to the city’s renters.
Jeremy Corbyn: Our Political Class Are Emboldening the Far Right
The Rwanda scheme is a repulsive election stunt from a government devoid of humanity. We must resist both the policy and the racist rhetoric that underpins it, writes Jeremy Corbyn.
Inequality Is the Price of Corporate Greed
Dividend payments to rich shareholders have grown 14 times faster than workers’ wages. This explosion in inequality is not an accident — it’s the result of an economy designed to reward corporate greed.
Jamie Driscoll’s Challenge to Labour Is the Shape of Things to Come
While the Tories will receive a drubbing in this week’s local elections, Jamie Driscoll’s North East mayoral candidacy has captured much attention — and highlighted Labour’s future electoral headaches, should Starmerism disappoint.
Rebuilding the Bonds
The miners’ strike was sustained by a broad coalition that coalesced entire communities. Forty years on, we must rebuild the bonds of solidarity, learn the lessons of defeat and reilluminate the possibilities that went dark as the pit entrances swung back open.
Arthur Scargill: ‘I Can’t Spell the Word Compromise; I Never Have’
Faced with the wholesale destruction of pit communities, Britain’s miners and their supporters waged a struggle that has gone down as one of the most heroic moments in working-class history.
The Coalfield and the City
Despite being considered divorced from the coalfield communities in every imaginable way, the wave of enthusiasm shown for the miners’ struggle by London’s diverse workforces and communities proved to be a decisive form of support.
Workers of the World United
To advance the miners’ fight in Britain, some 6,000 Australian miners sacrificed their own jobs. Their heroic stance was one of many international actions in defence of British mining communities.
Women Against Pit Closures: ‘We Got On With It’
Against Thatcher’s plans to starve the miners back to work, the political and physical sustenance of the miners’ strike was wholly dependent on the skills and determination of thousands of working-class women.
‘There Was a Whole World We Were Fighting For’
Since the release of Pride a decade ago, the story of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners has become legendary. Now, in what’s likely to be its final year, members reflect on defeats and unexpected victories.
Easington Under Siege
The County Durham pit village of Easington spent the strike year as a miniature police state as officers flocked in to enforce Thatcher’s assault. Four decades on, the scars run deep.
Walking Away from Workers
The period of defeat following the miners’ strike has been marked by an ideological retreat from class across the labour movement. Our task is to put the agency of working people at the centre of socialist politics.
As I Please: The War on the Miners Isn’t Over
Forty years on from the strike which sent their communities spiralling into poverty, former miners are still fighting for a rightful share of their pensions against a government that doesn’t want to give it up.
Still The Enemy Within
On the 30th anniversary of his seminal expose of the British state’s war on Arthur Scargill and mining communities, Seumas Milne explains how those same forces worked to undermine Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership.
Deindustrialisation Destroyed the Workers’ Movement — the Left Must Reverse It
The Tory project of deindustrialisation was a catastrophe for workers. It smashed the confidence of the socialist movement, which can’t become aloof to its historic demands for decent, dignified work.
How South Asians Sustained the Miners’ Strike
South Asians in Britain were all too familiar with state violence at the time of the miners’ strike. That shared experience led them out onto the picket lines and into fundraising efforts, seeking to forge unity through joint struggle.
David Peace: ‘Culture Needs to Change Politics’
From the Red Riding Quartet to GB84, David Peace exposed the seedy underbelly of Britain’s Establishment with rare candour. In this interview with Alex Niven, the seminal novelist discusses his youth in a mining town, the complexities of post-war Britain, and the need for socialists and artists to move beyond defeatism.
The Rebel Diplomat
In 1916, the diplomat Roger Casement was stripped of his knighthood and executed for his participation in the Easter Rising. His homosexuality, uncovered in the trial, still defines his contested legacy.
‘We Are Phuture’: Electronic Music’s Final Frontier
A new essay collection by veteran music critic Simon Reynolds tracks how electronic music’s future-forward tendency became sounds that eulogised progress in the twenty-first century.