I didn’t know Ralph Miliband, although I knew many who did. But I did know Lou Kenton, of the same generation, also a Jewish Marxist, who distinguished himself as a volunteer ambulance driver with the International Brigades in Spain and doing successful battle with Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts in Cable Street in London’s East End. Continue reading
Posted by Mark Seddon
Now we can keep our lights on!
Ed Miliband’s pledge to freeze energy process for twenty months, should Labour win the General Election, will be immensely popular with hard pressed consumers. His commitment, backed up by some effective and feisty performances from Labour’s Energy Spokesperson, Caroline Flint, has interestingly not been seriously countered by David Cameron or anyone from the Government’s front benches. This is most likely because Ministers know that this is a popular message, and that when Ed Miliband says that he is ‘on the side of the British people’, they, the public, know it. Even a former Conservative energy adviser, Tom Burke, has leapt into print in The Spectator to say that Labour’s plans to fix the ‘broken energy market deserve cross party support’. Continue reading
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Labour needs to subvert the cosy, conservative media consensus
Newspaper circulations may be continuing to fall, and increasing numbers of people are turning away from the night-time television news bulletins. They are looking elsewhere for their news and comment and are often finding it. This does not however mean that political agendas are not often being set by newspapers, with TV and radio media following in their wake. That agenda is increasingly raucous and predictable, parochial and often partisan. The Conservative Right may complain that the BBC is too left wing, yet the class composition and social attitudes of many of the corporations more prominent voices all too frequently reflect a narrow, innately conservative view of politics and of economics. Continue reading
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A Tory UKIP pact is emerging
In the 1970s the Conservative Party could still claim a membership of over a million. Two decades before that it was over three million and the Young Conservatives provided the principal dating agency for the sons and daughters of the aspirant middle classes.
Today that membership has shriveled to 134,000. It has halved since David Cameron became leader. This is an astonishing achievement, even taking into account the natural disillusionment and natural wastage of incumbency. What appears to have happened is that the true blue base of the Tory Party has simply walked off the pitch. Continue reading
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The battle for Labour’s soul
In the run-up to next year’s local government elections and as a springboard to the general election, Labour will hold a “special conference” next year.
Will it be to launch a popular campaign for jobs, growth and an end to the privatisation of our public services?
Might it be to roll out its anti-austerity manifesto?
Could it be to expose a developing Tory-Ukip pre-election pact?
Or could it be to take on the Tories and the SNP which between them want Scotland to take the lonely road to independence? Continue reading
