Posted in Blogging

The six most popular stories last month

Since some of you may have been lucky enough to get a holiday in August, you may have missed something. Like the six most popular stories on Left Futures last month, for example:

  1. The plot to topple Berlusconi – Berlusconi may be no friend of ours but you may still be disturbed by Tom Gill’s tale of a plot by EU and US politicians to topple him.
  2. Labour executive elections: best Left result since 1980s with 55% of members’ votes – Jon Lansman looks in depth at the results of Labour’s NEC elelctions.
  3. Avoiding charge of racism is a cover for patriarchy and misogyny in Rotherham – Diane Abbott explains why the roots of the horrific failures in Rotherham lie in attitudes to women not anti-racism.
  4. Stop the witch-hunt of Tricycle theatre for a “boycott” that never was and a false charge of antisemitism – Jon Lansman looks at an example of “crying wolf” over Gaza.
  5. On socialism, nationalism and anti-English sentiment in Scotland (part 1) – Scottish ‘independence’ divides the working class and offers nothing like socialist change, argues Greg Philo.
  6. Shutting down women’s refuges because they don’t take men is callous & absurd – Michael Meacher takes the Tories to task for the callousness about domestic violence.

Whatever happened to Socialist Unity

BN9CW5 BBC Test Card FThose who have recently tried to access the website www.socialistunity.com will have found that it is temporarily unavailable. This is due to a mix up by a well known hosting company. Some months ago we changed the web hosting to another provider. The original provider closed down the account, but through their error they closed down both the hosting and domain registration contracts, so that the domain name registrations could not be renewed, and as they have closed the account, it is not straightforward for us to even rectify the situation.

We are dealing with them, they have acknowledged the error and we are seeking a solution. We expect normal service to be resumed shortly. In the meantime, the site is temporarily available here: http://socialist-unity.com

Please pass on this message by social media, so that regular SU readers are aware what has happened

from the SU editorial team

The best of Left Futures in 2013

Thatcher & Union Jack PosterAnother year, another decent conference speech from Ed Miliband, an entirely needless battle with the unions, a false recovery from Gideon, and the deaths of two of history’s most significant figures. Left Futures has also once again gone from strength to strength to strength. 2013 in fact saw over 100,000 more visits than the previous year, so we thought we’d share the most popular below:

Top of the list is Jilly Luke’s critique of media narratives on the deserving and undeserving poor. It prompted a fiery response from Jack Monroe, the popular food blogger who was mentioned in the article. Several days after, we published this follow-up piece from our editor, Jon Lansman. The debate continued to rage, with Richard Seymour at the Guardian arguing that ultimately, Jilly was “bang on the money”. Continue reading →

The six most popular stories this week

  1. The top sixIt’s hard to disagree with Left Unity about anything much, other than their existence – Jon Lansman takes issue not with Left Unity‘s programme but with their political strategy – arguing that the Labour Party was still the right place for left activists to campaign for socialism.
  2. Unite offers Miliband an olive branch, with clear red lines – Ed Miliband must now negotiate a deal with the trade unions or face defeat, argues Jon Lansman.
  3. Judges overturn ATOS work capability assessment – in the week the appeal court rejects the DWP appeal, Michael Meacher’s May article returns to the top six.
  4. For those who can’t love Obama – Jack Dunleavy’s enthusiastic review of Sergio de la Pava’s novel, Personae, wins readers.
  5. Mandela’s Contested Legacy – Mike Phipps collates the less mainstream assessments.
  6. The politics of envy – Phil Burton-Cartledge responds to Lisa Ansell’s claim that “The Left” are responsible for grinding down working class people.