Features

Who is really running Britain?

The Dominic Cummings affair has exposed how far the Tories will go to protect unelected advisers. Nick Clark looks at what the scandal says about how society is run

Tory racist rules leave a million migrants living in squalor

migrants, anti-racism, immigration, Tories, no recourse to public funds

A million people in Britain are banned from claiming any benefits—and the coronavirus crisis will throw hundreds of thousands more into the same situation. Tomáš Tengely-Evans lifts the lid on a horrific, hidden world

‘My son was murdered’—two decades of racist killings

A revolt is exploding over George Floyd’s racist murder at the hands of the cops. Socialist Worker looks at a horrific history of killings in the United States—and the inspiring resistance to them

Winners and losers in Covid-19 Britain

We are not “all in this together”. Covid-19 is not some great equaliser that brings everyone together, but rather a crisis that is deepening the fissures in an already unequal society.

Why the world is unequal

The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the grotesque inequalities between rich and poor countries

Race—a capitalist invention

Scientists are struggling to understand how Covid-19 affects people differently. Socialist Worker shows that the construct of race has more basis in exploitation than biology

‘We can teach the Tories a lesson’—school workers, parents and students speak out over unsafe return to school

The battle over reopening schools could make or break the Tory drive to get people back to work before it’s safe.

How the Spanish flu spread—and why the second wave was worse

What lay behind the horror of a past pandemic?

Coronavirus, capitalism and a crisis of mental distress

For many, lockdown will affect their mental wellbeing. Iain Ferguson and Sarah Bates explore why mental distress is linked to the social system that we live in.

Russia 1917 - how a revolution beat back a pandemic

How would a society that has had a revolution deal with pandemics? A glimpse comes from Russia in 1917. The working class, headed by the Bolshevik party, took power in a revolution there in October. Immediately, they had to deal with waves of disease sweeping large parts of Europe.

VE Day—did workers win the peace?

As we mark 75 years since Victory in Europe Day, Donny Gluckstein looks at the class forces behind the frontline that helped to shape the post-war world

Union leaders’ inaction flows from drive to compromise

In a crisis that puts workers’ lives at great risk, union leaders must step up the fight. Tomáš Tengely-Evans explains why most have failed to do so

Homeless people abandoned in a system ‘designed to fail’

Despite Tory promises to house homeless people, the most vulnerable are left struggling with a situation that’s only getting worse

Who will pay for the crisis now?

A global pandemic has exposed just how fragile the world economy already was. Tomáš Tengely-Evans examines why capitalism constantly creates economic crises

A system of waste and rot

More than 250 million people face food uncertainty by the end of this year, while producers are destroying food on an extraordinary scale

Lenin and his ideas today

In a time when capitalism is in crisis, the works and life of the revolutionary Vladimir Lenin—born 150 years ago this week—are still crucial, writes Tomáš Tengely-Evans

Marxism in an age of catastrophe - capitalism created an era of plagues

We live in an era of plagues because of capitalist development, argues socialist author Mike Davis.

Time to leave the Labour Party and fight for change outside it

The Labour Party’s structures have always privileged its MPs and the right wing who hold members in contempt. The left shouldn’t be their willing hostages again, writes Nick Clark

Conspiracy theories don’t explain society’s problems

Sophie Squire asks what makes people believe in conspiracy theories—and looks at why they’re ultimately a dead end

Cook’s tour drenched in blood

British explorer James Cook arrived on the east coast of Australia 250 years ago. His incursion was part of a horrific imperialist expansion, writes Charlie Kimber