The 1st round Socialist victory in the French presidential elections on Sunday, the collapse of the Right-wing Dutch government on Monday, the probable demise soon of the Right-wing Czech government , and the likely election on 6 May of an anti-Merkel government in Greece point conclusively in one direction. Across Europe the democratic backlash against [...]
Posts under ‘International’
The case against a US strike on Iran
Apr 23rd, 2012 by David Osler.As John McCain’s painfully unfunny rewrite of the lyrics to Beach Boys’ hit Barbara Ann demonstrates, at least the former Republican presidential contender can see the lighter side of mounting a US airstrike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Fortunately for the rest of the world, Barack Obama has not only shown no inclination to ‘bomb bomb Iran’, [...]
Repsol-YPF: the left and nationalisation today
Apr 18th, 2012 by David Osler.It has been a long time since people used to get up at Labour Party meetings and casually demand the nationalisation of the top 200 monopolies, even in speeches supposedly addressing the need for better traffic light provision in Leytonstone. Bookmarks Hide Sites
The postwar Europe project has failed – we need a new and very different one
Apr 11th, 2012 by Jon Lansman.The European political project has failed: what was conceived as a means of preserving peace has become, through the outlawing of an expansionary fiscal policy by the Merkel-Sarkozy pact, an instrument to create division, inequality and conflict. Like the Left is increasingly doing across Europe (and the public did some time before), we must reject it [...]
Labour and the Falklands: what Foot got wrong
Apr 2nd, 2012 by David Osler.Margaret Thatcher had no particular animus against the average Latin American military dictatorship. So long as the lideres maximales confined themselves to the workaday torture and execution of leftists and strict implementation of Chicago School economics, they could always count on her enthusiastic support. Bookmarks Hide Sites
Mohammed Merah: French politicians should not exploit Muslim alienation
Mar 22nd, 2012 by David Osler.Thanks to Eurostar, Paris is now a city to which affluent Londoners can head for a night out. In a space of little more than 24 hours earlier this week, I squeezed in Shemekia Copeland’s stunning live blues show at New Morning jazz club, a blow-out meal at an historic brasserie and a spot of [...]
The big US-UK divide
Mar 15th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Cameron has enjoyed portraying in Washington that the US and UK are marching in lockstep towards early withdrawal from Afghanistan. But not on what matters even more – policy towards the deficit. There are two ways to deal with a big budget deficit: one is by cutting back expenditure (austerity) and the other is growth [...]
Standing up for Ireland
Mar 15th, 2012 by Gerry Adams.If you want to know who is taking the real decisions about the economy of the Irish state then you need look no further than EU Commissioner Olli Rehn. Since Fianna Fáil crashed the economy and Fine Gael and Labour won last years election they have repeatedly asserted that there can be no deviation from [...]
Iceland puts on trial those responsible for the crash. Why doesn’t Britain?
Mar 12th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Iceland had a spectacular economic collapse in October 2008 which bankrupted the country. This followed two decades in which right-wing governments engaged in an orgy of financial deregulation, launching a bonanza for its bankers with plentiful credit for its citizens, weak financial oversight and an unspoken rule not to ask too many questions but keep [...]
François Hollande and the strange resurrection of French social democracy
Mar 11th, 2012 by David Osler.Globalisation killed social democracy, and the experience of the Mitterand government in France between 1981-86 was the earliest intimation of the carnage that was to come. Well, that is the accepted wisdom, anyway. My first ever visit to France came shortly after le vichysto-résistant made it to the Palais de l’Élysée. Even though I was [...]
