Harold Wilson’s Labour government was elected in 1964 and re-elected in 1966. Wilson had presented himself as a "moderniser", but over the next four years his government turned away from socialist policies, held down wages and presided over rising unemployment.
The opportunities for revolutionary socialists in Britain began to improve in the 1960s. The long economic boom was faltering, with Britain falling behind its competitors.
North Korea is facing threats from the West over its recent nuclear testing. Owen Miller looks at the history of a country torn apart by the superpowers
Pierre Broué’s brilliant Marxist history of the German Revolution has just been published as an English language paperback. Ian Birchall introduces two extracts from the book
Last week I discussed how Leon Trotsky’s followers were thrown into confusion when the reality of the world after 1945 failed to fit with Trotsky’s predictions.
Is it possible to get the question of racism and Islamophobia more wrong than Oldham Labour MP Phil Woolas did last weekend? Muslim women who cover their faces with veils, he told readers of the Sunday Mirror, can be "frightening and intimidating". He added that Muslim veils could increase racial tensions in Britain.
Dr Bano Murtuja told Socialist Worker that she doesn’t normally wear the niqab (face veil), but was wearing it as a protest. "I am disgusted that our MP Jack Straw is pandering to the right wing," she said.
Jack Straw’s calculated entrance into the seething right wing debate on Muslims and multiculturalism has little to do with the wearing of the veil - and still less with the need to "open a dialogue" with Muslim communities.
"Ghettos", "No-Go Areas", "Race Riots On Queen’s Doorstep" screamed the newspaper headlines last week as a Muslim owned dairy near Windsor castle became the latest victim of Islamophobic hysteria.
John Rees examines the strategic choices that those who oppose war and neo-liberalism face in the post-Blair era.
Every generation seems to get its own version of the legend of Robin Hood. Most of the recent Robins, such as the one played by Kevin Costner in the 1991 film version, are wronged British noblemen who teach corrupt, often French, officials a lesson before being reconciled with the king and resuming their rightful status.
The Labour conference underlined just how right wing the party’s leaders have become.They are for war, neo-liberalism and for preventing real debate.
