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
IT WAS 10 years ago on August 4, 2011 that police shot dead Mark Duggan in Tottenham Hale. A gun was not found on him and there is no evidence that he fired one at police.
Numerous inquiries and court proceedings have followed but as so often the matter remains unresolved – not least for the family, but also for the wider community.
Two days later a local protest march went to the police station in central Tottenham. Such protests remain common, with incidents of racist policing still an issue. Usually the police engage with protesters who peacefully disperse. On that Saturday evening, August 6 2011, the police did not engage but tried to push back the protest. It sparked a riot — and that riot sparked others across the country.
KEITH FLETT looks at geographical roots of working-class activism in Britain
Gin Lane by William Hogarth is a critique of 18th-century London’s growing funeral trade, posits DAN O’BRIEN
White racist rioting has many an infamous precedent in Britain, writes DAVID HORSLEY
The summer saw the co-founders of modern communism travelling from Ramsgate to Neuenahr to Scotland in search of good weather, good health and good newspapers in the reading rooms, writes KEITH FLETT


