Economists estimate extreme poverty could be drastically reduced for a fraction of global defence spending, yet military budgets continue to expand year on year, says JON TRICKETT MP, ahead of the Stop the War International Conference on Saturday
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Washing up the Romans' plates
PETER FROST has been helping on a Roman dig near his Northamptonshire home, while nearby one of the area's biggest Roman settlements sees the light of day after 2,000 years
The head of a Roman statue found at Chipping Warden
As Unison launches its Year of Women Workers, ANNIE COGAN-THOMAS argues that stronger organisation and collective bargaining are essential to winning equality
Trade unions, trades councils and community organisations must work together to build lasting solidarity and resistance to the far right, argues DREW GILCHRIST
Recent violence in Belfast was not spontaneous — it was built on years of failure and political neglect, argues STIOFAN O NUALLAIN
As delegates meet in Brighton this week, Unison faces pressing questions about pay, organising, workers’ rights and political representation, explains ANDY CHAFFER
Andy Burnham’s growing stature has fuelled hopes of a Labour revival – but ALAN SIMPSON warns that Britain’s crisis runs far deeper than just its leadership and traces its roots to decades of financialised capitalism
IT’S a very peculiar feeling. There we were, my wife Ann and I washing up — well actually much more delicately cleaning — bits of broken plates. Not just any plates, mind you. These shards were parts of plates Roman soldiers had eaten their supper off 2,000 years before.
Ann and I were helping out on an archaeological dig near our home. We had volunteered and were given the job of cleaning the finds from one of the many Roman villas and other sites in these parts.
Neither of us are trained archaeologists, but Ann often reminds me of Agatha Christie’s advice to women of a certain age. “Marry an archaeologist” said Christie. “They are the only men who get more interested in you as you get older.”
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