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
FOR socialists there is a good deal to be discontented about Rachel Reeves’s policies as Chancellor. The cut in winter fuel payments has rightly caused anger and talk of cuts to spending suggests an austere 2025.
While she has been engaged with socialists who have thought a good deal about the historic roots of Britain’s crisis and what might be done — such as David Edgerton at Kings College, London — it’s difficult to discern much practical influence.
Of course, a certain portion of the attacks on her are firstly because she is the first female Chancellor and the world of finance is still largely that of men in suits. Secondly, she is a Labour Chancellor. Of what stripe is entirely irrelevant to the likes of the Mail, Telegraph and GB News: it’s just Labour of any kind they hate.
It’s not just the Starmer regime: the workers of Britain have always faced legal affronts on their right to assemble and dissent, and the Labour Party especially has meddled with our freedoms from its earliest days, writes KEITH FLETT
Who you ask and how you ask matter, as does why you are asking — the history of opinion polls shows they are as much about creating opinions as they are about recording them, writes socialist historian KEITH FLETT
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