The Tories introduced the 50% strike ballot threshold to make industrial action harder. MATT WRACK argues that a Labour government has no justification for leaving it on the statute book
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The passing of an era: poet Alan Buckley on the closing of Kellingley colliery
The miners’ strike of 1984 is embedded in the British psyche as a watershed in class politics and the ultimate exposure of the “one nation” term as utter humbug. Alan Buckley has the story
In the wake of Ann Widdecombe’s murder, JOHN GREEN wonders whether the government will really get to grips with the root cause of these attacks on our MPs
The new PM’s opening addresses offered hope, council homes and reform — but little detail on how any of it will be delivered, warns CLAUDIA WEBBE
Despite the screeching from the right-wing media, Burnham’s speech chimed with the public mood - and socialists should take advantage, says Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO
Scotland's Labour leader cannot continue to evade responsibility for the party's decline, argues LAUREN HARPER
Nature as well as society works dialectically, asserts the Marx Memorial Library and Workers’ School
There’s nothing romantic about coalmining. To get to the coal face at Kellingley colliery in North Yorkshire involved a 2,000-foot descent by lift, a five-mile journey by train, then a further two miles lying prone on a conveyor belt, before starting work in 30°C heat and 90 per cent humidity.
And when it comes to climate change, coal is not part of the solution though we’ll continue to burn millions of tons of imported coal in our power stations for at least a decade.
But all the same, when Kellingley — Britain’s last deep coalmine, known locally as The Big K — closed a week before Christmas Day I still felt a profound sense of sadness.
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