There my be an element of wishful thinking in Michael Meacher’s recent post on Left Futures, A clear Labour narrative is emerging, but key gaps need filling. A few good policies, such as the repeal of the bedroom tax or an energy price freeze does not constitute a narrative. In fact, without such an over-arching […]
Podemos – We can!
Jun 2nd, 2014 by Mike Phipps.One of the most spectacular – and unpredicted – results in the European elections was in Spain. A 16% swing against the governing conservative People’s Party saw the newly formed left party Podemos (We can) take 8% of the vote and 5 seats in the European Parliament. Additionally the United Left, a broad grouping to […]
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Fantasy and reality in Guatemala
May 18th, 2014 by Mike Phipps.On 13 May, the Guatemalan Congress held a vote that can only be described as surreal. They voted to deny that genocide took place during the country’s civil war from 1960-1996, which left 250,00 people, mainly indigenous Mayans, dead or disappeared. The vote was apparently aimed at “national reconciliation”. Actually it was also meant to lessen the […]
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Left win in El Salvador
Mar 22nd, 2014 by Mike Phipps.El Salvador’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal has confirmed the election to the presidency of Salvador Sanchez Ceren, the left-wing candidate in March’s presidential election. Sanchez Ceren was the candidate of the progressive Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a former guerilla movement that became a political party in the early 1990s. He narrowly defeated Roman Quijano […]
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Britain and Iraq: Business or Justice?
Mar 13th, 2014 by Mike Phipps.Eleven years after it participated in an illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq, the UK is taking a different approach. Global Research recently reported: In December 2007, Major General Graham Binns, Commander of British Forces in Basra, handed illegally occupied Basra Province back to the Iraqis. However, Major General Binns, who commanded the 7th Armoured […]
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Migrants need solidarity, not hostility
Feb 11th, 2014 by Mike Phipps.It’s always satisfying when a government minister is forced to resign on grounds of hypocrisy. This applies particularly to Immigration Minister Mark Harper, the man who brought us last summer’s “Go home or face arrest” vans in multicultural areas of London. He was forced to quit after admitting employing a cleaner without checking her documents […]
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Ten years on, the US are helping to destroy Fallujah again
Jan 29th, 2014 by Mike Phipps.Conflict and carnage on a scale unseen since the height of the Occupation nearly a decade ago have broken out in Iraq’s Anbar Province. Over 140,000 people have been made homeless since fighting started at the end of last year. According to the UN, 65,000 people fled the fighting in the towns of Fallujah and […]
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Break with this Tory rhetoric on immigration
Jan 20th, 2014 by Mike Phipps.Recent weeks have seen a poisoning of the political discourse about immigration. Much of the ludicrous fear mongering about an imminent invasion of Romanians and Bulgarians was whipped up by Tory tabloid newspapers. Their agenda is transparent: maximum publicity and support for UKIP ahead of the European Parliamentary elections this spring, primarily as a means […]
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Mandela’s Contested Legacy
Dec 10th, 2013 by Mike Phipps.Mike Phipps collates some of the less mainstream assessments of the leader of South Africas liberation struggle. Just as when Nelson Mandela walked free from jail nearly twenty years ago, or when he was elected President of South Africa in that countrys first ever free elections, now too in his passing, the world is witnessing […]
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Another stolen election in Honduras
Dec 2nd, 2013 by Mike Phipps.Despite widespread allegations of massive fraud, Honduras’s Supreme Electoral Council declared ruling National Party leader Juan Orlando Hernández the winner in the country’s presidential election in November. The right wing National Party was adjudged to have defeated Libertad y Refundación (Libre) party candidate Xiomara Castro de Zelaya. Xiomara Castro challenged the official returns and claimed victory. She is the wife […]
