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
Latest editorial
Heads in the clouds
Why do the Met Office care what you see out of your window? SCIENCE AND SOCIETY charts the history of amateur weather observations
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
WHAT do you see out of your window? Many people have reported during lockdown that they are noticing nature and the weather more. Lockdown has undoubtedly led to cleaner air due to reduced pollution, and more wildlife due to fewer people outside, but it seems likely that many people simply have more of an opportunity to notice things. The weather is one of them: not for nothing did the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson call the sky “the daily bread of the eyes.”
Of course, some will have been keen observers of the weather pre-lockdown. One of the Science and Society team’s grandmothers has been keeping a weather diary every day for several decades, inspiring in her grandchildren an interest in the observation of nature.
Such practices date back a long way. The earliest known weather diary in Europe was made by William Merle, a 12th-century parish priest in Driby, Lincolnshire, who recorded the weather between 1337-1344. No previous document exists with comparable detail.
Similar stories
The recent heatwaves revealed how ill-prepared Britain remains for a hotter future – and how unequal the ability to cope with it has become, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
Extreme heat is now one of the defining public health challenges of a warming world, explains Prof IAN WILLIAMS
JOHN GREEN welcomes a remarkable study of Mozambique’s most renowned contemporary artist
