23 h. ago Does Britain value culture any more? Ask the striking workers at the British Library | Zadie Smith

The dispute over pay at this great national institution gets to the heart of our misplaced prioritiesYou know a country by its values. By what a country values. And it turns out that what a country values can change over time. Sometimes, though, there’s a sort of cognitive delay between the country you think you are in, and the country you’ve actually become. For example, you can keep selling yourself, to foreigners, as the country of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, and luring busloads of tourists to Stratford-upon-Avon and Bath, and put a statue of George Orwell in front of the BBC, and imagine yourself a cultured and literate nation, which the rest of the world admires for its devotion to the written word – but if you then chronically underfund your cultural institutions, and treat your cultural workers with contempt, many people will suspect you of being full of it. And as the decades pass – and fewer and fewer Shakespeares and Austens and Orwells emerge from your little isl...

Events

52 h. ago VUE Glasgow: Vue cinema workers balloted in first ever Scottish cinema chain strike

The cinema is the second Glasgow hospitality venue to hold an industrial action ballot in recent weeks.

Events

4 d. ago Students and faculty at over 100 US universities protest against Trump’s attacks

Student, national and local groups across US organized day of action to condemn Trump’s assault on academic freedomStudents, faculty and staff at more than 100 campuses across the US rallied against the Trump administration’s assault on higher education on Friday – the first in a planned series of nationwide, coordinated protests that organizers hope will culminate in large-scale students and workers’ strikes next May Day and a nationwide general strike in May 2028.The day of action was organized under the banner of Students Rise Up, a network of students including both local groups and national organizations like Sunrise Movement and Campus Climate Network. Students were joined by faculty and educational workers’ unions like the American Association of University Professors and Higher Education Labor United. Continue reading...

Events

4 d. ago Bin strike set to hit London borough in run up to Christmas as refuse workers vote for industrial action

Refuse workers have voted to strike over pay with their union saying dates for walkouts are expected in December

Events

5 d. ago POLL OF THE DAY: Do you agree with 'frightening' new poll that Starmer's Britain is divided and culture is changing too fast?

Research from King's College London and pollsters Ipsos found that eight in ten said they felt the nation was divided - up five percentage points from two years ago and ten points from 2020.

Politics

5 d. ago Greater Manchester transport workers walk out again as strike continues

The general secretary of Unison was joining a picket line on Friday

Economics

6 d. ago BAE workers can continue to strike following High Court decision

An proposed injunction against industrial action was dismissed on Thursday.

Events

6 d. ago EasyJet disruption looms for Christmas as workers ballot for strike

EasyJet passengers are facing Christmas disruption as workers ballot for strike action. Check-in and baggage-handling staff employed by DHL are balloting for strike action over pay.

Events

6 d. ago Are NHS workers about to strike? Junior doctors set to walk out again

Thousands of junior doctors are expected to take part in strike action this month

Economics

6 d. ago Why Starbucks’ Red Cup Day could be chaotic in 25 cities this year

CEO Brian Niccol has been working to overhaul U.S. store operations in a bid to win back customers

Politics

6 d. ago US Starbucks workers prepare to strike if contract is not finalized by next week

Starbucks Workers United voted to authorize open-ended strike if deal with company is not reached by 13 NovemberUnionized Starbucks baristas voted to authorize an open-ended strike ahead of Starbucks’s high-traffic holiday season, announced Starbucks Workers United on Wednesday.The union said workers are prepared to strike if a contract is not finalized by 13 November, which is the company’s Red Cup Day, and strike actions could hit more than 25 cities and escalate if there is a lack of progress. Continue reading...

Events

6 d. ago Disruption warning as more strikes planned next week by TfGM workers as pay offer dispute continues

The union claims the action is likely to create disruption across the transport network in Manchester, but say an improved pay offer would stop the action

Events

1 week ago ‘People have had to move house’: Inside the British Library, two years on from devastating cyber attack

Staff tell Athena Stavrou they’ve faced abuse because of ongoing issues at the Library, where dozens of services remain unavailable

Events

1 week ago Britain would do well to remember where its power over China lies | Simon Jenkins

It’s ridiculous for the government to splurge on defence while it slashes spending on its most valuable asset: cultureThe US has backed down in its tariff war with China. Thanks to Donald Trump’s egotistical diplomacy, rare earths can again flow one way, soya beans the other, and less of the chemicals used to make fentanyl in between. No matter that the war was Trump’s own idea and seems to have been a stunt. The stunt is over. Trump has played his favourite game of dealmaker, much to the discomfort of millions.Meanwhile Britain still cannot make up its mind if China is its enemy. In 2008 British officials visited the Beijing Olympics authorities to discuss the next games in London in 2012. The government told them to “raise” human rights issues, about which the British government was most concerned. I am told the Chinese reacted with sympathy at the Britons’ embarrassment at broaching the matter, and then everyone got down to business. Soon China was a friend, certainly to David Ca...

Politics

1 week ago South Park creators’ restaurant workers go on strike over ‘unfair wages’

Unionized performers will picket outside the restaurant from Thursday to Saturday

Society

1 week ago Bus strikes across Wales set to go ahead as workers reject pay offer

First Cymru's bus services will be affected over four days

Economics

2 w. ago Dead and Alive by Zadie Smith review – essays for an age of anxiety

From cultural appropriation to gender, Smith nails the politics of creativity. But on actual politics, she is less assuredAccepting a literary prize in Ohio last year, the novelist Zadie Smith described “feeling somewhat alienated from myself, experiencing myself as a posthumous entity”. Smith is only 50, but there is indeed something of the afterlife about the material gathered in her new book, which bundles various odds and ends from the past nine years: speeches, opinion pieces, criticism and eulogies for departed literary heroes – Philip Roth, Martin Amis, Hilary Mantel.In Some Notes on Mediated Time – one of three completely new essays in the collection – Smith recalls how the “dreamy, slo-mo world” of her 1980s childhood gave way, within a generation, to the “anxious, permanent now” of social media. If you lived through that transition, you don’t have to be very old to feel ancient. When this estrangement is compounded by the ordinary anxieties of ageing, cultur...

Events

2 w. ago Hundreds at London’s British Library go on strike, as Tate workers consider action

Hundreds at London’s British Library go on strike, as Tate workers consider action  The Art Newspaper

Events

2 w. ago Agency workers covering for Birmingham bin strikers to vote for their own strike action

The threat of industrial action by agency staff hired to cover for those striking comes amid claims of bullying and harassment

Politics

2 w. ago Agency workers covering for Birmingham bin strikers to vote on industrial action

Hundreds of members of Unite in Birmingham have been on all-out strike since March in a dispute over pay and jobs.

Politics