University campuses across the country will play host to another day of action against the privatisation of student debt, this Wednesday, 20th November. This follows numerous student actions on the 5th November “bonfire of austerity”, along with a week of action in late October which saw the offices of several Lib Dem MPs targeted. Students […]
Student “debt-in” in protest at loanbook privatisation
Nov 7th, 2013 by Keith Wright.Students and staff at the University of Cambridge this week (Tuesday 5th November) staged a “debt-in” on King’s Parade, in opposition to the government’s plan to privatise student loans, which could see interest on such loans being retrospectively doubled. This comes after a number of actions taking place in London last month, including the targeting […]
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Arnie Graf’s campaigning vision: just another script?
Jun 6th, 2013 by Keith Wright.Arnie Graf wants a “relational” Labour party. The former “mentor” to Barack Obama, hired by Ed Miliband to reinvigorate the Labour grassroots has made it clear that political campaigning should be about more than winning votes. Labour must place itself at the forefront of community campaigns across the country, if it is to keep the […]
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Who are “Labour Teachers”, and why has Michael Gove praised them?
Apr 28th, 2013 by Keith Wright.The Labour party is full of weird and wonderful groups of all shapes and sizes. If you’re active on social media, you may well have come across one particular example, the group that calls itself “Labour Teachers”. You might have also been struck by a line from a speech by Michael Gove to teachers and […]
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Labour parliamentary selection hopeful supports charging Dale Farm evictees
Apr 18th, 2013 by Keith Wright.We’ll forgive you if you haven’t heard of Elliott Adair. Parliamentary selections are plentiful at the moment, and one can’t possibly keep up with every single hopeful. Adair, however, is seeking the Labour candidacy in South Basildon and East Thurrock, contested at the last general election by then-Basildon MP Angela E. Smith. There’ll no doubt […]
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Lutfur Rahman: former party official threatens to “load the revolver”
Mar 29th, 2013 by Keith Wright.Hatred runs deep in Tower Hamlets Labour – as we’ve reported before. The East London borough’s party branch still remains deeply divided after Lutfur Rahman, selected to fight for the directly-elected mayoralty by Labour, was dropped by the party national executive committee, after one of his rivals made allegations of extremism against him – claims […]
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Physical space is the focus for the left once again
Mar 9th, 2013 by Keith Wright.For many, the firebombing of the Freedom Press anarchist bookshop in Whitechapel last month was shocking – not only in its vicious nature, but also in the revelation that London still had such an institution. But as the Press struggle to get the pamphlets moving once again, the incident offers a more potent message to […]
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Left surge forward in Young Labour – but more at stake this weekend
Feb 25th, 2013 by Keith Wright.For the past month, Young Labour members have been voting for their representatives on the youth section’s supposed ruling body – the Young Labour National Committee. When the ballots opened, I did some analysis of who could be considered left candidates, and who would be worth supporting. The results are now in for the regional […]
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Young Labour: who are the left candidates?
Jan 23rd, 2013 by Keith Wright.At Europe-wide conventions of socialist youth organisations, Britain’s Young Labour was known until recently as “the Blair witch project”. Since the organisation replaced the Militant-dominated Labour Party Young Socialists in 1992, it has been dominated by those on the hard right of the party, maintained by a culture of fixing and until a few years […]
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Plebs take over the asylum: Andrew Mitchell’s office occupied
Dec 5th, 2012 by Keith Wright.Andrew Mitchell, the Tory former chief whip who famously told a police officer to “learn your fucking place, you fucking pleb”, may wish he hadn’t made enemies of the old bill. For who will defend him now his own constituency office has been taken over by activists fed up with austerity and the government’s contempt […]
