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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‘Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things’
Socialist historian KEITH FLETT introduces a rediscovered 1811 Shelley poem dedicated to a persecuted radical journalist
The Peterloo Massacre
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
THIS year has been the 200th anniversary of Peterloo and with it Shelley’s poem the Masque of Anarchy has received fresh publicity.
It was read by actor Maxine Peake in the historic John Rylands library in Manchester as part of the anniversary activities.
The Masque of Anarchy was not freely available until some years after Peterloo, but the first poem Shelley wrote of political note, while still a student at Oxford in 1811, a Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things, was published at the time.
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