Your obituary for the Labour historian Nina Fishman (27th Jan) states that 'she refused to join any political grouping' and continues 'She became prominent in the NUM's administration during the 1972 national coal strike, after which she moved back to teaching ...'

In fact Nina Fishman was for some sixteen years a leading member of the British and Irish Communist Organisation, and in 1973, in that context, she developed a series of policy positions which, had they been followed by the Labour movement, would have rendered the rise of Thatcherism and the consequent collapse of working class power impossible.

The obituary presents her as an academic who eschewed politics but she is best seen as a political activist whose academic work was a continuation of politics by other means.

Yours
Peter Brooke