The Lost Revolution: the story of the Official IRA and the Workers’ Party, is a riveting tale, but it underplays their influence on the British Labour movement, says Gary Kent. The Troubles have produced a vast library but this is the first major history of an overlooked but influential movement: the Official IRA and...
Articles
The Good Society Debate
Across the continent, the left’s response to the recent economic crisis has been poor, verging on non-existent, just when the situation demanded a credible alternative to the dominant political and economic orthodoxy. That’s the starting point for a Europe-wide online debate on the future of social democracy hosted by the Soundings and Social Europe...
Stop the BNP
If you haven’t already done so you can protest about the BBC extending a hand of friendship to the BNP via the Hope not Hate website. On Thursday afternoon (22 October) Hope not Hate are going to the BBC to deliver the Question Time presenter, David Dimbleby, thousands of messages of hope from supporters....
The void in the mind of the left
The Compass lecture given by Jon Cruddas attracted a lot of coverage last week. But there was a familiar hole in the heart of his plan for the left, says Matthew Brown Whatever else you might say about Compass, the Labour left pressure group, those people certainly know which way is north when it...
Wise words on the Irish question
Words are weapons and can also save lives. It’s possible the wise words of a young Danish sociologist could have saved hundreds of lives in Northern Ireland if they had been heeded. Gary Kent explains why This slim but weighty pamphlet was published by the Independent Labour Party in 1972 and in that year’s...
Superpower headaches
Will Brown looks at the foreign policy agenda facing the Obama administration. The vitriolic healthcare debate in the US and ongoing economic problems may dominate President Obama’s current agenda but the first nine months of this administration have also put into sharp focus an exceptionally difficult range of US foreign policy problems. The inauguration...
Time for the Tobin Tax
Gary Kent argues that the global financial crisis makes the case for a Tobin Tax even more compelling. Some ideas are nurtured for decades before they shoot to prominence usually to the surprise of those who have long advocated them. This could be the fate of the Tobin Tax, originally devised by the American...
Politics After the Crash
The annual conference in June of the journal Soundings, Politics after the Crash, provided a valuable and unostentatious forum for the left to discuss some of the key issues of our time. This short report by Barry Winter focuses on the contribution made by the opening speaker, Paul Mason, the economics editor of BBC...
Lies, hubris and neo-liberalism
Barry Winter examines how capitalism went from boom to bust and where it leaves us Introduction I begin this introduction with what may seem like a diversion. I want to take us briefly back to the horrors of the First World War in which often enthusiastic, armies of young men across Europe were sent...
Crunch Times
“There is a sense of uncertainty and flux, a feeling that we’re coming to the end of an era in politics. It’s one that we’ve never much liked, yet we know what’s coming could be so much worse.” With those unsettling words David Connolly, chair of Independent Labour Publications, opened the ILP’s weekend seminar...
The Seeds of Radicalism
Steve Thompson traces the history of the co-operative movement and argues that this is a decisive moment in its renaissance. There is an alternative to capitalism, it’s called the co-operative commonwealth. It’s a way of living and trading with business which is run democratically for the benefit of the members and communities who use...
The Cost of Expenses
It is right that there is anger over MPs’ expenses, says Will Brown, but let’s not damn all politics. The row over MPs’ expenses and the misuse of public funds have rightly been met with pubic anger and criticism. It is indeed indefensible that MPs should be making a fast buck from the public...