For St Patrick’s Day Mark Perryman outlines the meaning of the forthcoming Easter Rising Centenary for models of Britishness St Patrick’s Day. Down the local, one of the best night outs of the year, a non-stop party drenched in all things Irish. A celebration of Ireland’s freedom, which can never be entirely separated from history […]
Posts under ‘History’
Jeremy Corbyn follows the example of Lincoln
Dec 3rd, 2015 by Andy Newman.Possibly the best film I have ever seen about politics is Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. It is partly inspired by Doris Kearns Goodwin’s extraordinary book, Team of Rivals, that includes biographies of Edward Bates, Salmon Chase and William Seward, who served in Lincoln’s cabinet, but were also opponents of his who had themselves sought the Republican […]
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Historical allusions: a helpful guide for Blairites and appeal for cooperation
Nov 30th, 2015 by David Osland.Gordon Bennett, those Blairites (a historical term for people roughly corresponding with the 4.5%ers – Ed) can’t half be a bunch of drama queens sometimes. The merest slight to the amour propre of the tattered remnants of New Labourism often meets with hyperbolic allusion to some of the most dramatic events of recent centuries by way […]
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The ‘Stalinism’ of Jeremy Corbyn: a reply to the Telegraph’s deputy editor
Aug 6th, 2015 by David Osland.Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters should get off Twitter and read a book instead. Or at least that’s the somewhat patronising headline accusation that opens the Telegraph deputy editor Allister Heath’s polemic against the left’s contestant in the current Labour leadership contest. It’s a bit rich for rightwingers to accuse leftwingers of not reading enough books. Surely the […]
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A manifesto of good reads
Apr 21st, 2015 by Mark Perryman.Mark Perryman of Philosophy Football selects his reading for the 2015 General Election Campaign The much-missed indie band, well by some of us of a certain age, Sultans of Ping, had a great line in one of their barnstormer numbers “I like your manifesto, put it to the test ’tho.” We are told in all seriousness […]
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Why Dave has ruled out a third term
Mar 24th, 2015 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.How short are political memories? Being someone with stints in Leninist organisations behind me, one lesson I talk from those times was how the party styled itself as the collective memory of the class. Hence why the repetitious lead offs on the Russian Revolution and rinse and repeat articles on the old beards. However, it turns […]
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Benn’s Bandwagon – behind the scenes in 1981 deputy leadership campaign (video)
Mar 7th, 2015 by Jon Lansman.A really good documentary first shown on 28 April 1981, in the second month of the contest and at the point when it began to dawn on the pundits that Tony Benn was going to come close to winning. Frank Chapple, leader of the hard right electricians union says on camera that if Benn won the TGWU […]
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How Ukip and their friends are re-writing history
Dec 30th, 2014 by Conrad Landin.If you’ve picked up a newspaper or turned on the radio in the past week, you might have heard about Martyn Heale. He’s Ukip’s branch chairman and election agent in South Thanet – the constituency where one Nigel Farage hopes to be elected an MP next May. He’s also, you’ll probably have heard, a former […]
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Whatever happened to the two party system?
Nov 20th, 2014 by Trevor Fisher.The British political system is based on two parties electing the Prime Minister, who has to command a majority in the House of Commons. The ruling assumption was that there will be only two parties, an alternating government party and an opposition. There has never been much call for proportional representation and a multi party […]
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Nigel Farage on invading imperial Germany
Nov 14th, 2014 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Compare and contrast. One party leader is caught on tape saying he’d like to do away with the NHS and replace it with an American-style health insurance scheme, and has recently said the allies should have invaded imperial Germany, even if it cost an extra 100,000 casualties. Another leader gives a beggar money and looks […]
