Demonstrations, participation in elections and the exercise of power are political activities with a common characteristic: the working classes are moving away from them or feel excluded from them. When millions of people in France showed their solidarity on 11 January with the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, there was a marked contrast between middle-class mobilisation and the smaller numbers of working-class and young people from deprived areas who turned out. Popular protest has (...)

The Conservative Party didn’t win the UK election. The Labour Party lost it, especially in Scotland, which is going its own political way towards nationalist social democracy.

Relations are beginning to normalise between Cuba and the US last month a ferry service began from Florida, the first for more than 50 years. But the new Cuba may be a less stable society.