This official history of NUPE from 1928 to 1993 (when it merged with COHSE and NALGO to form UNISON) deserves to be a standard reference book for those interested in the evolution of modern unions, particularly in the public services. It is comprehensively researched, although mainly from the written records, rather than tapping into the [...]
Posts under ‘Books’
Ahmed Faraz case: when selling books equals ‘priming people for terrorism’
Nov 23rd, 2011 by David Osler.Vincent Tabak often looked at online strangulation pornography prior to his murder of Joanna Yeates. Despite that, the operators of the websites that cater for this particularly repulsive fetish are not on trial as accomplices to murder. Nor is anyone suggesting that Christian retailers should be jailed for selling the Bible, even though twisted organisations [...]
Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion: who gets to read bad books?
Nov 21st, 2011 by David Osler.Karl Popper singled out Plato’s Republic as the blueprint for all modern totalitarianisms, while many other academics accord that status to Rousseau’s The Social Contract. As it happens, I studied them both in some depth as a student and I have kept the copies. On the next bookcase sits Seyd Qutb’s Milestones, widely considered the intellectual inspiration [...]
Economic credibility and ethical socialism
Oct 3rd, 2011 by Carl Packman.Being the opposition, the Labour Party during their conference had at least the opportunity to discuss ideas that will fundamentally change the direction of their politics, and hopefully all politics, for some time to come – a privilege not able to be enjoyed, to the same extent, by the Tories this week as they go [...]
A Very British Coup
Sep 10th, 2011 by Jon Lansman.A Very British Coup, re-released on DVD next week, is a gripping story of what might have happened had a left-wing government been elected in Britain sometime in the 1980s. Based on the novel by Chris Mullin, until the last election MP for Sunderland South, it was adapted for TV by Alan Plater and starred Ray [...]
‘Gay Gandhi’ book banned in India
Apr 7th, 2011 by Newsdesk.The Indian state of Gujarat has banned a new book about Mohandas ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi in protest against its revelation that the Indian independence leader left his wife to live with a man. In a similar direct threat to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, there are calls to ban the biography in other [...]
Mandelson (and Blair) represent Labour’s past and Labour’s defeat
Feb 26th, 2011 by Jon Lansman.Peter Mandelson says he is loyal to Ed Miliband; he has a funny way of showing it. The extracts from the new chapter of the paperback edition of his book, The Third Man, published on Labour Uncut and Labour List, provide much ammunition for the Tories. Labour’s leadership election rules, for example, Mandelson claims gave a [...]
The journey of a certified delusional
Sep 2nd, 2010 by Michael Meacher.It is true of politicians (as of others too) that their enemies never do as much damage to them as they do to themselves. Blair is a living proof of this observation. His diaries abound with his self-righteousness, his constant spin to gloss over his real motives, his inability (or dogged refusal) to admit to [...]
Muck-raking through the Wasted Years
Jul 16th, 2010 by Mark Seddon.“Mad, bad and dangerous”, these are the epithets apparently attached to Gordon Brown, by Tony Blair our previous Prime Minister but one. They form the centre piece of some very serious muck raking by the man who tried to play both of them off against each other throughout Labour’s thirteen years in Government, Peter Mandelson. [...]
Narcissism writ large
Jul 14th, 2010 by Michael Meacher.Not another personal memoir, surely. Apart from the obvious motive of trying to retain a drop of fast-fading publicity, this latest wallowing in an orgy of self-importance in Mandelson’s diaries is yet another painful reminder of the personality-obsessed, policy-vacuous utter lack of ideology, direction and vision of the New Labour years. It’s almost as though [...]
