Few journalists mention Boris’s slights against black people: all that talk of ‘piccaninnies’. Being on the left in public life means automatically inviting ridicule and venom. While only just over a fifth of eligible voters opted for the Conservatives at the last election, most of our media is firmly in the right-wing camp. Hacks and hit blogs pounce on every gaffe and any plausible example of a personal failing that clashes with left-wing beliefs: the right relish nothing more than exposing a socialist hypocrite. (Read the rest at the Independent)
Posted by Owen Jones
If trade unions don’t fight the workers’ corner – others will
Our Prime Minister certainly has few doubts about who’s orchestrating the backlash against workfare. “Trotskyites!” Cameron boomed during Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions; if he’d thrown in “wreckers”, it wouldn’t have been a bad impression of Andrej Vyshinsky, Stalin’s semi-hysterical prosecutor during the 1930s Show Trials. Continue reading
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A new class politics
The recession has brought class inequality back into view by exposing the unjust distribution of wealth and power in Britain. Labour must tackle this with a new class politics of stronger trade unions and a more representative parliament.
During the long boom of the nineties and noughties, it was possible to at least pretend class was no more. ’We’re all middle-class now’ boomed politicians of all stripes; it was a line peddled by most of the mainstream media too. Britain’s growing class divisions – as entrenched as ever – were apparently papered over by the promise of ever-growing living standards. Continue reading
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What David Miliband’s intervention really means
Those of us who have suggested David Miliband’s latest political intervention may have – let’s say – ulterior motives have received a bit of flak. Must he stay silent just because any public pronouncement may be misconstrued by the media? Why can’t he contribute to the debate about the party’s future like anyone else? Continue reading
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Socialism: it’s nothing personal
I’m almost feeling sorry for Fred the Shred. ‘Humbling of Mister Godwin’, mocked the Daily Mail; ‘Goodwin is shredded’ (geddit?) bellowed the Daily Telegraph; ‘Once A Knight Fred’, echoed the Sun, a newspaper always keen to win the most imaginative pun stakes.
It’s more than tempting for the left to jump on this populist bandwagon. After seething with anger as those who had nothing to do with the crisis have been expected to pay for it, finally, one of the those responsible for the current catastrophe has been held to account in some small way. Continue reading
