Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki

This week millions in Japan and throughout the world will pause to remember those who died in the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the last days of the Second World War. On 6th August 1945 Hiroshima was destroyed by an American atom bomb. Nagasaki was hit three days later. Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly civilians, were killed instantly in the atomic blasts. Many more would later perish from flash burns and radiation sickness.
Hiroshima Day is observed on 6th August to commemorate the tragedy, honour the victims and promote global peace and nuclear disarmament. As Jeremy Corbyn says “On Hiroshima Day, we remember every single person who was killed by an indefensible act of barbarity. We mourn the human lives underneath the statistical horror of the bomb’s death toll which, together with that from the attack on Nagasaki, was more than 200,000 people. And we commemorate the hundreds of thousands of survivors — known as the hibakusha – who endured the horror of what was left behind: nuclear radiation, mass destruction and unimaginable grief”.
The claim that the atom bombs forced Japan to surrender is an enduring myth of the Second World War. The bourgeois politicians who seek to justify this monstrous war crime say that the Americans had to use the atom bomb to force Japan to surrender and bring the global conflict to an end. But Japan was already on its knees begging for an armistice.  Hitler was dead in his bunker. Japan was reeling from daily air-raids and a crippling Allied blockade. Communist-led partisans had driven the Japanese invaders out of vast tracts of China, Korea and Vietnam while the Soviet Red Army delivered the killer blow when they smashed through Japanese-occupied Manchuria in August 1945. But two Japanese cities were wiped out to show the world, and the Soviet Union in particular, what the might of US imperialism was capable of doing.
The Americans thought they had a monopoly on nuclear know-how. They thought their new nuclear weapons would give them the power to dominate the entire world. But they were wrong. Soviet scientists were also unravelling the secrets of the atom and the USSR would soon develop nukes that would more than match anything in the imperialist arsenal. 
All the veto-powers on the UN Security Council – Britain, People’s China, France, Russia and the United States have nuclear weapons. But China is the only one that pledges never to be the first to use them.
People’s China actively supports proposals for multilateral and universal nuclear disarmament. China stands for the complete prohibition and total destruction of all nuclear weapons. China, backed by many other countries, has challenged the West to implement the entire non‑proliferation treaty, which was signed in 1968 to halt nuclear arms race but also committed the signatories to work towards universal nuclear disarmament. In the meantime China calls on all the major nuclear‑weapon states to abandon their policy of nuclear deterrence.
These long‑standing demands must be projected throughout the anti-war movement in Britain. The NCP supports the efforts of the Stop the War movement, CND and other peace movements for unilateral British nuclear disarmament.
The British “deterrent” is a farce. The UK’s submarine-based Trident nuclear missile system is totally controlled by the Americans. Billions are wasted on maintaining Trident – money that could be better spent maintaining the health service and providing the education, affordable housing and decent state retirement pensions worthy of a country as rich as the United Kingdom. We must mobilise to stop the new Burnham government from spending billions more on these needless and useless nuclear weapons; scrap all British nuclear weapons and close down all US bases on our soil. 

The Age of Erdogan

by Ben Soton

From Life Itself – Turkey and Istanbul in the Age of Erdogan by Suzy Hansen, Profile Books 3036, 368pp, pbk rrp £12.99

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have dominated Turkey for over twenty years.  He became Prime Minister in 2003 and has been President since 2014. This is the story of his reign. The book covers the Erdogan years mainly through  the prism of the Istanbul neighbourhood of Karagumruk and its local muktar, Ismail.  A muktar is a local fixer, whom people often come to for advice; interestingly Erdogan once referred to himself as the Muktar of Turkey.
The author covers the changes to Istanbul over this period; which include a real-estate boom that has changed the appearance of the former capital of the old Ottoman Empire.  In 2013 Erdogan faced criticism from architects over the destruction of Gezi Park with a view to turning it into a shopping mall in the style of Ottoman military barracks.  This led to protests sparked by criticism from architects; in typical far-right populist fashion Erdogan claimed to be standing up to elites.  Meanwhile the construction boom led to serious imbalances in the Turkish economy, which led to economic problems in 2018. Early in the book Hansen gives historic reasons for the success of Erdogan and the AKP. In 1955 Istanbul was rocked by sectarian riots which led to an exodus of Greeks from Istanbul and other Turkish cities. They were replaced by conservative migrants from the countryside; some of whom had a poor understanding of city life.  Ismail recalls a new arrival depositing soil on his roof with a view to planting tomatoes and water pouring into his flat below. Now these communities have established small to medium sized businesses and become keen supporters of the AKP.  
Erdogan has created an alliance between Islam and capitalism based around state-sponsored construction projects to counter the secular Kemalist establishment they defeated in 2002 and curb the growth of the Turkish left. In the 1960s the left flourished in Turkey, as in much of Europe, often amongst radicalised students. Successful movements of the left are an alliance between workers and intellectuals but this didn’t work in Turkey where much of the urban working class are descended from rural migrants.  
The author charts the changes in the nature of the AKP which in its early days favoured a form of Pan-Islamism but has now moved towards an aggressive form of Turkish nationalism with an innate hostility to the Kurds. This can be partly explained by the AKP alliance with the far-right National Movement Party (MHP) in the Turkish parliament which further concentrated power in Erdogan’s hands.
The earthquake of 2023 sent shock-waves throughout Turkish society. Many of the buildings constructed during his tenure survived but some raised the issue of the unsafe buildings that were destroyed; especially in a country prone to earthquakes. Despite this he still survives and there is even talk of changing the constitution enabling him to remain in office after 2028.         
Erdogan’s success may be down to a weak opposition who engage in politics on his terms; or simply the repressive nature of the Turkish state. Hansen, an American academic views the world from a liberal perspective; focusing on the subjective experience of individuals.  However this does not mean that her work should be dismissed or ignored.
  

Labour holds!

The Burnham boost continues on a roll in Manchester. Labour swept the board in the Greater Manchester mayoralty by-election last week. Andy Burnham’s chosen successor, Bev Craig, won the most votes. The Faragists came a poor second, followed by the Greens while the Tories and the Liberal-Democrats trailed behind with the also-rans in the poll for the post left vacant when Burnham returned to the House of Commons to get rid of Starmer and become leader of the Labour Party. 
Her victory in what, is after-all a Labour stronghold, is perhaps not surprising. Nevertheless 
 Reform and the Greens had high hopes when the race began to replace the “King of the North” on his old turf. But their dreams of a breakthrough were dashed by Bev Craig, a seasoned Labour councillor who has led Manchester City Council since December 2021.
Bev Craig was the first woman and the first openly LGBT woman to lead Manchester City Council. She’s now the first woman elected to lead the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. She’s a supporter of Mainstream Labour, a self-styled “radical realist” faction that was set up last year to reverse the party's "clear drift to the right" under Starmer and promotes a left social-democratic platform which includes taxing wealth, introducing democratic reforms and restoring part, but not all, of the British public sector that existed until the Tory come-back in 1979. 
Labour now pips Reform in the opinion polls as the Faragist leader flays around Clacton fighting to keep his seat against a man with a bin over his head while more and more voters return to the Labour fold now that Burnham appears to uphold traditional Labour values. But does he?
Yes, no, maybe. Burnham has certainly revived Labour’s fortunes. His initial pledges to build more council houses and help pensioners have helped. So has the long over-due decision to allow maverick left MP Diane Abbott back into the party. His talk about wealth taxes, rejection of neo-liberalism and criticism of Israel – a first for a modern Labour leader – are further steps forward. Some say this is small beer compared to Attlee’s sweeping post-war programme that set up the welfare state and built the public sector and the NHS or those of the later Wilson administrations that brought the unions to the centre of government. But the Burnham agenda is a bonanza compared to Starmer who did nothing for working people.
Of course Attlee, Wilson and Callaghan served British imperialism as much as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Sir Keir Starmer. Andy Burnham and those behind him are no different.  
Burnham’s modest reforms are, however, not just sops to win votes – they do genuinely reflect the demand for change within the broader labour movement.
Getting rid of Starmer and his henchmen was a start. Now we have to get rid of the rest.
Getting back to the 1970s – the days when unions counted and workers enjoyed the highest standard of living recorded in the UK – will only come with mass pressure from the rank-and-file – the workers, the toilers the people who make this country work. We are part of that struggle and putting the communist answer to the capitalist crisis back on the street is the task of the day... 

Looking to the future with People’s China

Chinese ambassador Zheng Zeguang opens the session

New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks took part in a symposium with the theme of the Communist Party of China and the World at the Chinese embassy in London in July. This is his contribution to the discussion.

by Andy Brooks

The Chinese revolution that established the people’s government in 1949 has transformed the country that was then the poorest in the world. China has now risen from being a weak semi-feudal, semi-colonial country to become a force for peace in the global arena, with the second largest economy in the world. Productivity gains, innovation and consumption needs have become the main drivers of growth. China's manufacturing, innovation and construction now serves the entire world. As China transforms it shares what it has learned with other developing countries facing similar challenges. And equally the communist party, which led and continues to lead the Chinese people’s march to socialism, is always ready to share its knowledge and experience with the rest of the communist movement around the world. 
People's China, under the leadership of its Communist Party, has made remarkable progress in the transformation of a poverty-stricken land into a leading power within a few short decades. It looks forward with confidence to the future and offers friendship and respectful relations to all the peoples of the world. 
From just over 50 members when it was founded in 1921 the Communist Party of China has grown into the world’s largest governing party, leading a nation of more than 1.4 billion people. The founding of the Party in July 1921 was the spark that united the people of China in the struggle against the landlords and capitalist oppressors, as well as Japanese and American imperialism, that led to the proclamation of the People’s Republic in 1949.
The qualitative transfer of society from obsolete capitalism to progressive socialism is the historical mission of the working class. The Chinese revolution was a momentous event – a landmark in world history like the French Revolution, the Paris Commune and the Russian Revolution of November 1917. The steadfast path taken by the Communist Party of China, changing the course of history in the pursuit of national liberation, social justice and the struggle against fascism and war embraces the lofty ideal of communism. The people’s government and the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics are the products of generations of struggle led by the Communist Party of China. People’s democracy, the people’s democratic dictatorship, reflects the essence of the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism in Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.
We live in turbulent times.  A time of sharpening contradictions — and the primary contradiction in the world today is between United States imperialism and the rest of the world it seeks to dominate. American imperialism fans the flames of war in Ukraine and the Middle East, blocks the return of Taiwan to its Chinese homeland and prolongs the unhappy partition of many countries including Cyprus, Ireland, Kashmir and Korea.  
Mao Zedong famously said that imperialism and all reactionaries are paper tigers but he also warned that they are their most ferocious when their backs are against the wall. This year we’ve seen the Americans land in Caracas to seize the Venezuelan president and drag him off to jail in New York. We’ve seen the treacherous American-Israeli “decapitation” raids on Iran that killed the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic and many other senior members of the Iranian government and we hear the threats to strangle Cuba and anyone else who stands in the way of US imperialism.
But wherever there is oppression there is always resistance. People’s China and the other people’s democracies in the world stood firm with Iran when the Islamic Republic fought back and forced the Americans and their Israeli and feudal Arab lackeys to cease-fire in June. 
On the economic front China has become a beacon of hope for all the peoples of the world struggling to build their own independent economies without imperialist interference. While Anglo-American and Franco-German imperialism use their military and economic might to impose their neo-colonial rule throughout the Global South the Chinese people can, and do, provide the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America with an alternative source of high technology and economic assistance without the odious strings attached that always go with deals with the West. 
And a new spirit of determination is sweeping across the world communist movement. For many years communists in the imperialist heartlands of Europe and North America looked to what many of them called the “Soviet model” and tried to create platforms to rally working people against the imperialists and oppressors. But calls for the re‑establishment of another Communist International were unrealistic. The conditions that led to the establishment of the Comintern in 1919 do not exist today. The experiences of world communist conferences sponsored by the revisionist leaderships in the CPSU after the death of Stalin were not taken into account. The vies of the ruling parties were often ignored. Now the “Brussels” conference has gone and the moribund Solidnet forum looks likely to soon follow. 
But times are changing. The close solidarity, co-operation and growing ideological dialogue and ties between the “five golden flowers of socialism” – that is China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba and the DPR Korea – provides a focus for the entire world communist movement and the potential basis for a concrete platform for all the communist and workers’ parties of the world. 
We are all stepping stones to the future that Marx and Engels foresaw – a future now being built in China and the other people’s democracies around the world. 
The Communist Party of China has becoming a rallying point for the world communist movement. We welcome it. Although calls for the re‑establishment of a formal Communist International are premature, a co-ordinated international communist response is needed to rally working people against the imperialists and oppressors.
We must work to restore the momentum for revolutionary change; strengthen co-operation and united action with communist and workers parties around the world; build solidarity with the global anti-war movement and forces for liberation in the Global South to unite the class and march towards a new tomorrow – the world Marx and Engels predicted and a world that will surely come. We see it in China today. We will all surely see it tomorrow.

Burnham makes his mark

Andy Burnham starts his premiership on a high note clearing out the rubbishy ministers that revolved around Starmer and the ageing Blairite clique he relied on during his two years of misrule. He rejects neo-liberalism – the laissez-faire capitalism that gave us two global slumps and the second world war in the 20th century – and he’s even made a modest criticism of Israel over Gaza. While a package of modest reforms including a curb on bus fares throughout the country, VAT breaks for pensioners and pubs, more devolution and a national council house-building programme will boost Labour’s fortunes for the next few months.
But Burnham’s devolution specifically rules out independence for Scotland or Wales. His government still crawls to the Americans and we’re still waiting for the renationalisation of the water industry.
Labour’s move towards more Keynesian economic solutions is not a shift to the left but merely a return to the traditional right-wing dogmas that once held sway in the Labour Party before the Blairites took over. But social-democracy in whatever form cannot solve the problems of the working class. Our task, to make the case for the communist answer to the capitalist crisis, is more urgent by the day.

Enter the Binman...

Summer is known as the silly season in the press because the long parliamentary recess means they have to fill their columns with even more rubbish to make up the difference. And nothing, perhaps, could be more sillier than the epic battle between Nigel Farage and Count Binface in a run-down former sea-side resort in north Essex.
The leader of Reform hoped to avoid Parliamentary scrutiny of his dodgy undeclared gifts and donations by resigning to trigger a by-election and re-contest in his own constituency. But his dream of trouncing the Tories and his other political foes in the poll has turned sour with all the mainstream parties boycotting the election and leaving the field to Binface and a legion of others seeking their fifteen minutes of fame on the streets of Clacton today.
Count Binface is the street persona of Jon Harvey, a stand-up comic who has been a familiar face at by-elections since 2017. Binface upholds the rights of every citizen to stand in elections and gets a protest vote that many left groups would envy these days. Now the Count is playing for higher stakes on an ethical platform that challenges all that the Faragists stand for. 
Clacton-on-Sea is one of the poorest towns in Essex. Forty seven per cent of Clacton's residents over 16 are classified as "economically inactive" as they say. One in five working-age adults have never held a traditional job. High unemployment and the drugs and petty crime that go along with it have made this traditional Tory homeland the prey for the Faragists and their kind in recent years.
Some argue that the left should have joined the 30-odd others in the fray but this would be pointless given the absence of any substantial working-class movements in the constituency apart from the trade unions and the co-ops. Others say Clacton deserves more than a comic candidate to represent them. They certainly deserve someone better than Nigel Farage. At the end of the day those who bother to vote will decide. Who knows...it is, after-all, the silly season...

If wishes were fishes…

 ...we’d all cast nets they used to say, Now all we hear in the Westminster bubble are the odds on the gravy-trainers lobbying for jobs in the new Burnham government and the echoes of the media pundits on the direction that the “King of the North” will take when he moves into Downing Street. A lot of the speculation is, of course, inspired directly by the Burnham team who hope their leader’s “coronation” will lift Labour out of the pit of despair Starmer left the party in after his two years of misrule ended this month.
Burnham is an ambitious politician who did little during the Corbyn and Starmer years to hide his ambition to lead the Labour Party and the country. Now his time has come with a “Burnham bounce” that has given Labour its first lead in over a year in the opinion polls amid talk of “Manchesterism” and a “new vision” for the future. But what actually is on the Burnham table?
The answer is nobody knows. Burnham is talking about launching the biggest council house building programme since the Second World War. He hasn’t given a figure but last year he talked about building half-a-million “social homes” by 2030. If he ends the “right to buy” and the restrictions on council borrowing that has been upheld by successive Tory and Labour governments since 1979 that will drastically cut the shameful UK homeless figures and create more work for the younger generation throughout the country. Vague promises to return the water industry and the power utilities to public ownership have not been followed up with concrete plans to restore part of the public sector while talk of more power to the councils and the regions is all very well – but it’s meaningless unless these local authorities are given the power and the funds to provide the social services that people so badly need.
Burnham’s people are talking about electoral “reform” which would get the Greens and the Liberal-Democrats on track for a tactical vote alliance at the election. Your Party may be dead in the water as far as a national party is concerned but, nevertheless they look likely to keep the five parliamentary seats they hold at the next election. It could even sway the Corbynistas, if only Burnham could swallow his fear of bringing Jeremy back on board.
But all this is meaningless without a social programme – a genuine commitment to implement the union agenda, restore the welfare state and the public sector we once had. That’s what the unions have got to fight for and that’s where the struggle has only just begun.

The right to roam

by Ben Soton

Contested Commons – A History of Protest and Public Space in England by Katrina Navickas; Reaktion Books, London 2025; 384 pp. Hbk £20

The pages of the New Worker are full of articles and stories about protests be they progressive reactionary or anything in between.  But what of the places, usually outdoors spaces, where protests take place? 
Sometimes these places are the subject of protest themselves.  In Contested Commons, Katrina Navickas provides the story of these places.  Her book covers the history of public spaces and their role in popular protest.
A book like this should be welcomed at a time when the right to protest is under attack. 
First of all it challenges the “myth of the commons” – the idea that at some point in time we all had access to common land which was later on stolen by the landowners. The problem is that no such Golden Age existed.  Although enclosures of common land did become widespread from the Tudor times, there is little actual evidence that any such Golden Age ever existed. Another theme is the concept of Enclosure versus Commoning.  For instance in her section covering the anti-roads protests of the 1990s, Navickas sees the road builders as enforcing enclosure and the anti-road protesters as defending the ancient commons.     
The book is written in two halves.  The first concentrating on the rural man-made landscape; with chapters including Commons, Waste and Verges.  This section begins with examples of enclosures of common land in the 18th Century as well as the mass Kinder Scout Trespass protest in the 1930s and the Right to Roam.
The second part of the book covers urban protest with chapters named after street furniture such as, Railings, Pavements and Barricades. Railings is a reference to the protests during the  Second Reform Act of 1867, (which enfranchised urban, male property owners) where protesters used the railings surrounding Hyde Park to defend themselves from attack by the police. Barricades is a reference to the Battle of Cable Street when the people took to the streets to beat back the Mosleyites on the streets of London’s East End in 1936.  Later chapters cover events such as the Battle of the Bean Field in 1985; an event that took place during the miners’ strike which the author makes no mention of.  And it ends with coverage of the New Age Travellers of the 1990s, which she refers to simply as New Travellers.  
In a recent article in the Morning Star Ian Sinclair points out that “92 per cent of land and 97 per cent of rivers in England” are not legally accessible.  Subsequently, a book that covers issues of land ownership and common land is to be recommended.  Whilst with the legitimate right to protest under attack it is reminding us of the long history of protest in the country.   

 

Putting people first in People’s China

by John Maryon

People's China has launched its new 15th Five Year Plan which aims for high quality growth.  A far more ambitious project than merely increasing industrial and agricultural production and expanding the nations G D P.   Boosting the service sector, continuing to invest at a high rate in infrastructure, further improving health and welfare provision to meet people's needs and ensuring stability by the reinforcement of supply chains are all given priority. The country’s defences will be strengthened to resist imperialist aggression. Traditional growth strategies are being replaced by new development methods aimed at transforming the economy to higher value production levels driven by innovation. 
It is a sustainable and comprehensive programme that includes boosting domestic consumption by upgrading technology to develop new high quality productive forces and also to extend a new development pattern. This consists of two drivers for growth. First domestic circulation where production, consumption and innovation within China is used to provide a main driver for growth. Secondly international circulation with trade, Investment, technology transfer and tourism reinforcing domestic development. The plan lays the basis for the major task of achieving basic social modernisation by 2035.
With its commitment to multilateralism China has become a major contributor to global development and a defender of the international order. China has increased its influence within the Global South countries through its participation in development projects that are open and honest without interference or political pressure. Belt & Road is a symbol for win-win in international development. Such measures all contribute to stable international economic growth. China opposes unilateralism and protectionism that challenge global stability. 
A priority feature of the Five Year Plan is the construction of a unified national market. This allows for resources to be allocated efficiently, discourages the preservation of uncompetitive industries and replaces redundant capacity with new investments that drive quality and innovation. Steps will be taken to allow for remote less well developed regions to access a wider range of goods and services. 
Green and sustainable development is a cornerstone for China's development. The country will move quickly to adopt an increasing number of eco-friendly production processes and lifestyles to ensure that carbon emissions peak by 2030, paving the way for achievement of carbon neutrality before 2060. Being the world's leading industrial powerhouse and with one of the world's largest populations China is faced with an important and monumental challenge.  During the next five years green and low carbon technologies will be expanded with more wind turbines, solar panels and hydro power stations being built. The new generation of safe thorium nuclear reactors will continue their development.  An additional 60,000 km of zero-carbon transport corridors will be constructed and over 100 zero-carbon industrial parks will be built.  China's electric car numbers will continue to increase rapidly.  China now leads the world in both renewable energy capacity and manufacturing. 
The Five Year Plan puts people's welfare and fulfilment as a top priority. The country's bio-diversity will be improved further as endangered aquatic species are reintroduced into upgraded water streams and lakes. Steps will be taken to ensure that the increasing number of once rare animals can live safely with the human population. Nature reserves will be upgraded. Work will continue with large forestation projects to tame the deserts. More people living in the great cities will experience the freshness of countryside quality air. An already harmonious society will develop further with the respect given to the environment and it's creatures. 
Artificial Intelligence (A I) applications across key sectors will continue to play a major role in building a Smart Economy.  A faster achievement has been called for by the government to build more intelligent terminals and to promote an increasing number of large scale commercial applications. Unlike the capitalist system with its basic contradictions, a reluctance to invest and the constant threats of surveillance and war the people's republic is in a good position to use the technology for the benefit of everyone. Repetitive, unpleasant and hazardous tasks may be carried out automatically leaving comrades more free time to engage in sports, cultural activities, music, the arts and study. While some Western powers become excited over the prospect of using A I for war, China views it as an essential tool for the full advancement of a people oriented society. 
The Chinese revolution that established the people’s government in 1949 has transformed the country that was then the poorest in the world. China has now risen from being a weak semi-feudal, semi-colonial country to become a force for peace in the global arena, with the second largest economy in the world. Productivity gains, innovation and consumption needs have become the main drivers of growth. China's manufacturing, innovation and construction now serves the entire world. As China transforms it shares what it has learned with other developing countries facing similar challenges. And equally the communist party, which led and continues to lead the Chinese people’s march to socialism, is always ready to share its knowledge and experience with the rest of the communist movement around the world.
People's China, under the leadership of its Communist Party, has made remarkable progress in the transformation of a poverty stricken land into a leading power within a few short decades. It looks forward with confidence to the future and offers friendship and respectful relations with all good people. 

So long Keir Starmer…

It didn’t take long to get rid of Starmer after all. His pathetic resignation speech marked the inevitable end of his dismal two years in office spent crawling to the Americans and what he believed was the dominant trend amongst the British bourgeoisie. No longer of any further use to the ruling class following the overwhelming Burnham victory at the Makerfield by-election. Stabbed in the back by his phoney friends in Parliament. No one will miss him.
In the corridors of power Labour politicians and senior civil servants are already drafting plans for the new Burnham administration while union leaders lobby for the return of the water industry and the power utilities to some form of public ownership.
Burnham’s team say their man will revitalise a moribund party, head off the challenge of the Faragists and a resurgent Tory party, and lead Labour to victory at the next general election.
They like to present the “King of the North” as a new broom. But there’s nothing new about Andy Burnham, who while not a Blairite, nevertheless comes from the ‘Old Labour’ class-collaborationist tradition that still holds sway through much of the labour movement.
Economic stagnation, unemployment, homelessness, poverty, drug abuse and crime. These are the problems that face the incoming Burnham government. These are the problems of end-days capitalism. Ultimately, the only answer is socialism. But in the meantime there’s plenty of scope for a country as rich as Britain to take on board the demands of the labour movement that include the restoration of the welfare state and the public sector that Britain once possessed.
The days when people listened to the rich men who told us that the greatest virtue of humanity was the possession of the largest amount of money are over. Great mass movements are again sweeping the continents. The masses are demanding social justice, democratic rights and an end to exploitation. It’s capitalism that’s finished – not us. 
On the streets millions want a decisive break from the imperialist agenda that led to the Zionist genocide in Gaza and countless other Western war-crimes in other parts of the Global South.
The billions consumed by the arms race and the pointless nuclear “deterrent” would be better spent restoring industry to provide work for the younger generation and decent pensions for the old. Progressive taxation for the rich, who can well afford it, would pay for the “safety-net” benefits of old and guarantee free education and medical for the sick and infirmed. 
Burnham says he listens to the unions and the street, unlike Starmer and the ageing Blairites the former Labour leader surrounded himself with, Whether Burnham will actually do anything about it remains to be seen. His decision to appoint former head of Labour Friends of Israel, James Purnell, as his chief of staff gives little ground for optimism...