Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
Latest editorial
Building the left 40 years after the miners' strike
In a major conference this weekend, the Morning Star will bring together veterans of the great strike with leading organisers of today’s left and labour movement to chart the path forward, writes BEN CHACKO
WAR FOOTING: A picket walks past the massed ranks of the police outside Orgreave coking plant, 1984
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
NEXT month will mark 40 years since the beginning of the 1984-5 miners’ strike. It was not only a formative struggle for an entire generation of socialists and trade unionists, but one whose outcome continues to shape British society today.
But when we meet this weekend for our Morning Star conference — Fightback: 40 Years On From the Miners’ Strike — we will be looking forward, not back.
The miners’ strike was the largest and most consequential industrial dispute of the Thatcher years. Their defeat put rocket boosters under Thatcher’s programme of privatisation and deregulation, from which we can trace a direct line to today’s failed state of collapsing services, enfeebled workplace rights and threadbare social security.
Similar stories
The newly catalogued News International Dispute Archive ensures the history of the Wapping dispute – and the solidarity it inspired – is preserved, accessible and alive for future generations, says MATT DUNNE
BEN CHACKO says in different ways, the centenary of the General Strike and that of Fidel Castro’s birth point to priority tasks for the British left in the coming year
Across the country readers are rallying to the People’s Paper’s cause. Star campaigns manager CALVIN TUCKER has some handy ideas on how to get involved
The Home Secretary’s recent letter suggests the Labour government may finally deliver on its nine-year manifesto commitment, writes KATE FLANNERY, but we must move quickly: as recently as 2024 Northumbria police destroyed miners’ strike documents