Tagged with Republicanism

On accepting knighthoods and gongs

One twice-yearly spectacle I never look forward to is the New Year’s and Birthday Honours List, the occasion where the Queen, at the behest of the establishment, dishes out awards for services rendered. I don’t look forward to it because, inevitably, someone ostensibly on the left picks up a knighthood and/or a gong. And so it has happened today. The GMB general secretary from this day forth shall be known as Sir Paul Kenny, and feminist author and campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez shall now be styled with an OBE after her name. As someone whose republicanism is bone deep, I find this state of affairs appalling and depressing. Continue reading →

Dear Liz Kendall, about the differences between socialism and liberalism…

Liz KendallDear Liz,

Re: Leadership of the Labour Party

I noted the other day that leadership contests are that rare occasion when MPs and ordinary members are frank about the personalities and policies at the top of the party. Some also over egg the pudding and go for outright abuse. I’m thinking mainly, this time around, about the people who are mostly Andy Burnham identifiers and think attacking you as the Conservative Party candidate for Labour leadership is a smart way for their man to win. It isn’t, it’s unfair, and it’s clear from an brief with your material that a Tory you’re most definitely not.

That doesn’t mean I think you’re well suited to lead the Labour Party. Continue reading →

The abdication of the king ends Spain’s imperfect transition

Handout released by the Spanish Royal House shows Spain's King Juan Carlos posing for his new official portraitsTranslated from the original by Vicenç Navarro

The message that the Spanish establishment – the power structure for the financial, economic, political and media elite – has been promoting 24  hours a day, three hundred sixty five days a year and through thirty- six years of democracy, is that, as result of a model Transition, Spain has enjoyed a democracy homologous to any Western European democracy, that under the direction and supervision of the King of Spain the country achieved levels of welfare and quality of life similar, if not better, than the rest of the European Union. The King, whose power derives from the Dictator, was the architect of representative and democratic institutions that actually meant a break with the previous regime. This is the idealized vision of the Transition, which produced democracy, and the role of the monarch in that process that the Big Media and mass means of persuasion have constantly repeated over the years. The complete lack of ideological diversity of the media ( with a very marked discrimination against the left ) explains that this view has become conventional wisdom in the country. Continue reading →

A King is born

Crown of India by Pietro & Silvia, at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ImperialCrownOfIndia2.jpgWhile I’ve been writing this, we – Her Majesty’s subjects – have been allowed to learn that a baby boy, weighing 8lbs 6oz was born to the Royal couple at 25 past four this afternoon. Whoopie-doo. Now, I can just about remember the last time the media was dominated by Royal baby hysteria. The year was 1982, and on that occasion too a nation steeped in reverence for its monarchy eagerly awaited the birth of an heir. But then there was only three channels, the radio and the press.

Now, well, thanks to social media it’s arguably much more difficult to escape from. And more fraught too – have you been appalled by someone who should know better gushing over the Royal offspring? Continue reading →

Whatever happened to Labour republicanism?

It’s just a guess on my part, but even today, a significant minority of Labour MPs would perhaps privately profess support for a British republic.

Maybe even Ed Miliband, if you caught him alone over a beer, would concede the absurdity of selecting our head of state exclusively from the ranks of a single family of state-supported billionaires through application of the hereditary principle. It represents the ultimate symbolic negation of social mobility. Continue reading →