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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Blairite Ghost in the Machine
Lord Sainsbury’s Progress group is preventing Ed Miliband from breaking with new Labour, says SOLOMON HUGHES
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
ED MILIBAND's problems hanging on to the leadership of the Labour Party are made worse by the strong grip of Progress — a Blairite group whose own leaders admit they are “an unaccountable faction dominated by a secretive billionaire” — on the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Progress are a new Labour pressure group who, thanks to millions of pounds of Lord Sainsbury’s money and the loyalty of many of the front bench, are very powerful within Labour, even though most Labour voters don’t know they exist. It acts as a party within a party, pushing Labour back onto the true new Labour path.
It is not directly behind the current anti-Ed manoeuvres, which are a bit exaggerated by a hostile media. It is a pint-sized plot rather than a full on rebellion. But Progress’s constant hemming in of and humming and hawing about Miliband’s leadership wear away at his authority. It creates the background to the current mini mutiny.
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