Ann Pettifor remembers Mohammed Ali with whom she worked in the Jubilee 2000 campaign for cancellation of third world debt Mohammed Ali – ‘The Greatest’ – died this weekend, at the age of 74. With his loss, the world is deprived of the terrific energy of a principled, devout and committed man. A boxer, a philosopher […]
Posts Tagged ‘obituary’
Remembering Denis Healey – the good, the bad and the utterly hilarious
Oct 4th, 2015 by Jon Lansman.Denis Healey was a great figure for twenty-five years of Labour history, a politician with “a hinterland”, very well-read and deeply interested in art and music, and, though Jeremy Corbyn may not have approved, was a master of the brilliant put-down. Geoffrey Howe was forever diminished by that greatest of personal attacks – his attacks […]
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Remembering Charles Kennedy
Jun 3rd, 2015 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Turning on BBC News yesterday, I was thrown by the sad passing of Charles Kennedy. Not being a LibDem and living hundreds of miles from his constituency (as was), I never had occasion to bump into him in real life. Like most other political people the Charlie Kennedy I knew was the kindly presence on Have […]
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Obituary: Vladimir Derer, leading campaigner for Labour Party democracy
Jun 11th, 2014 by Jon Lansman.Vladimir Derer who was the leading figure in the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) for forty years after its foundation in 1973 died yesterday at the age of 94. Although almost unknown other than amongst Labour activists, he was the Labour Left’s leading strategist at the height of its influence in the 1970s and 1980s. The organisation he created and […]
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What made Brother Crow a truly admirable trade union leader
Mar 12th, 2014 by Andy Newman.Now is not the time to debate the complex issues of whether the RMT’s industrial and political strategy has been an overall success; although there is a debate to be had there. The RMT’s strategy has of course also not sprung from the head of one man: it has also been shaped by other leading […]
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Obituary: Bob Crow
Mar 12th, 2014 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.I’m shocked I have to write this piece now. Bob Crow, probably the most effective trade union leader of this generation has been cruelly snatched away from our movement. Our thoughts have to be with those who feel his passing most keenly – his family, his friends, his close comrades. Now is not the time […]
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Obituary – Jim Mortimer, a socialist and trade unionist to the end
May 2nd, 2013 by John Cryer.Jim Mortimer, who has died at the age of 92, was the general secretary of the Labour Party during the turbulent early eighties – perhaps the most difficult time to take on that role since the party was founded. I was distantly related to Jim. An uncle of his, who gloried in the name of […]
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Stop all the clocks
Apr 17th, 2013 by Norrette Moore.Stop all the clocks, sell off the telephone, Feed the starving with a juicy bone, Silence the unions and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the Tories come. Let Pinochet circle moaning overhead With Reagan he scribbles the news: She Is Dead. Put crepe nooses round the white necks of the ailing, As […]
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Mrs T – a depreciation
Apr 9th, 2013 by Ian Williams.The New York Times epithet machine used to describe Margaret Thatcher for American readers as “the prime minister who privatized the loss-making state industries.” Of course she did no such thing. The enterprises she sold off made huge profits for the Treasury. BP was, after all, the state-owned creation of Winston Churchill and kept a […]
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Death of a class war enthusiast
Apr 9th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.Thatcher was a deeply divisive figure, which is why she will be lionised in much of the South of the country and reviled in most of the North. In hard and difficult times the British people will rally to a unifier, whether Churchill in wartime or Attlee in constructing a peace that would not return […]
