The Big Society was a short-term fantasy that turned into an enduring nightmare for thousands of charities, Unite, the largest union in the country, said this week. Unite, which has 60,000 members in the Not for Profit sector, said that David Cameron’s pipedream should be investigated immediately by the Commons Public Administration Select Committee....
Articles
Compass: a wider view or loss of focus?
The left of centre think tank, Compass, is currently consulting and balloting its members on proposals to become more ‘pluralistic’ by allowing full voting membership to members of political parties other than Labour. It would be easy to regard this debate as relevant only to Compass itself, and those with an unhealthy interest in...
Turkey’s prudish PM
JAMES BRYAN wonders how the Turkish government’s humourless approach to public art fits with its supposed commitment to secularism. Though his pronouncements insist that Turkey’s Kemalist secularism remains undiluted, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan can’t seem to shake off innuendos about his past and that of his party. He and the Justice and Development...
Egypt: Will anyone stand up for democratic socialism?
JAMES BRYAN asks why it took so long for the Socialist International to expel Mubarak’s party. When faced with adversity we often find out who our real friends are. Despite being deserted by his own people, Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak can for now put his trust in the police and the top-tier of the...
The State of the State
The role and nature of the state has become a central feature of British political argument – should it be an ‘EasyJet state’ or a ‘John Lewis state’? Should the state give way for the arrival of the ‘big society’, or forms of mutualism or associationalism? In the context of deficit reduction and austerity...
Roma’s last stand
Roma Marquez Santo, the POUM veteran who unveiled a plaque to the ILP’s Spanish Civil War volunteers in Salford in May 2009, died in Barcelona on Wednesday 29 December 2010. CHRIS HALL recalls his life and the events that shaped it. Roma Marquez Santo born in Barcelona on 6 November 1916 into a political family...
A tribute to Roma
Roma Marquez Santo, the POUM veteran who unveiled a plaque to the ILP’s Spanish Civil War volunteers in Salford in May 2009, died in Barcelona on Wednesday 29 December. HARRY OWEN pays tribute to the man who fought fascism in Spain in the 1930s yet could still hold audiences charmed and spellbound with tales of...
Labour ‘Supporters’ To Get The Vote?
A report in ‘The Independent’ (28 December 2010) says that the Labour Party has written to the Committee on Standards in Public Life arguing for a cap of £500 on donations to political parties. According to the paper, ‘Mr Miliband is ready to gamble on Labour attracting thousands of small donations from individual supporters...
Education is a social good, not a commodity
On 7 December, former New Statesman editor Peter Wilby wrote in The Guardian that Ed Miliband was wrong to oppose the government’s proposals to treble tuition fees. Here, BERNARD HUGHES says his argument is based on a view of education as a commodity not a social good. Peter Wilby’s argument has two main problems....
Education for people not profit
Compass has published a statement protesting at the government’s education reforms. We reproduce the statement here and provide a link to the Compass page where you can sign the petition. If you agree that education should remain a protected public good sign our petition! There is widespread anger over the government’s higher education reforms...
The Day of the Vote
AARON KIELY provides a student’s eyewitness account of police brutality at the tuition fees demonstration in Parliament Square last week. First, I have to state that I am a member of Labour Party, a candidate in the upcoming local elections, a Committee member of the NUS Black Students’ Campaign and an elected representative of...
False Economy
As campaigns against the spending cuts grow, readers may be interested in False Economy, a website for “everyone concerned about the impact of the government’s spending cuts on their community, their family or their job”. Devised by “local campaigners, those who rely on or support good public services and those who work to supply...