Finland’s Free School Meals Success Story
In Finland, high-quality free school meals are provided to all children between six and sixteen as a public service – instead of handing over cash to rip-off profiteers, Britain should follow its lead.
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Ko Leik Pya works as a teacher and writer in the UK and Myanmar. He writes here under a pseudonym.
In Finland, high-quality free school meals are provided to all children between six and sixteen as a public service – instead of handing over cash to rip-off profiteers, Britain should follow its lead.
The Royals’ finances, like their powers, are opaque, vague, and poorly understood, but they still receive immense state subsidies – it’s time to properly nationalise their lands.
Today, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham announced that the region’s buses will be brought back into public control – it’s a victory for campaigners and a model the whole country should follow.
Allegations of corruption in the Caller Report are grim, but Labour’s failure to oppose the takeover of Liverpool by an equally corrupt Tory government threatens to plunge a left-wing heartland into years of right-wing policies.
Years of central government cutbacks combined with the fallout from Covid have left councils across the country in crisis – with 25 on the brink of bankruptcy and many more unable to provide basic services.
While bailiff evictions remain formally paused, eviction hearings are going ahead – and with rising numbers of people unemployed, claiming Universal Credit, and slipping into arrears, thousands face losing their homes.
In the early weeks of lockdown, mutual aid groups sprang up to support those in need during the pandemic – but many fizzled out, and those that remain will only survive if committed to transformative politics.
After a year of corruption, delay, and denial, the government can’t be trusted to hold itself accountable for Britain’s extraordinary Covid death toll – so campaigners, workers and bereaved families are doing it instead.
On William Morris’ birthday, we republish his lecture on the decorative arts – in which he laid out his vision of art created by and for the people, and the post-capitalist world that would make it possible.
Berlin mural ‘The Press as Organiser,’ hidden for 30 years, is about to be unveiled to the public after restoration – and its message about the role of the media for radical politics has lost none of its resonance.
This week, Grace talks to Shami Chakrabarti – barrister, human rights campaigner, and former Shadow Attorney General under Jeremy Corbyn – about the Police Crackdown Bill and the wider Tory assault on civil liberties.
Today’s unemployment numbers are the highest in five years, with almost 700,000 jobs lost during the pandemic and 1.7 million out of work. It is an avoidable crisis – and young workers are bearing the brunt.
Today, the government is calling for a national day of reflection. But it is ministers who need to reflect – on the vital work done by workers to keep society going, and on the need for a proper public sector pay rise.
A year of being stuck inside has exposed Britain’s housing nightmare – Europe’s smallest average home sizes, sky-high costs and dismally low standards. If we want better, we’re going to have to fight the landlord class.
One year ago today, Britain entered lockdown after days of prevarication and delay – it would set the stage for a government response which was catastrophically inadequate, and contributed to over 125,000 deaths.
The response to yesterday’s protests in Bristol is a reminder that the liberal commentariat would have bitterly condemned the very movements that struggled to win the rights they now claim to defend.
Yesterday’s ‘Kill the Bill’ protest and last year’s tearing down of the Colston statue have made Bristol a symbol of resistance – but for almost two centuries, the city has been at the forefront of radical politics in Britain.
The Paris Commune, which began 150 years ago this month, was a conscious attempt to build a new world in the ruins of the old – and influenced the writing of the most influential leftists for generations to come.
Across the world, government promises of a ‘green recovery’ from the pandemic are ringing hollow – they will only be forced to act when we build mass working-class movements which demand radical climate policies.
In Thurrock, the local Tory council is attacking the terms and conditions of binmen and carers only months after they were celebrated as key workers – but instead of taking it lying down, they’re voting to strike.