The veil debate obscures a bigger question, says BEN TURLEY. What place should faith have in our public life? When, on 5 October 2006 in the Lancashire Times, Jack Straw started a debate about the wearing of the veil by Muslim women, he did so with characteristic modesty and equivocation. While Straw said that...
Articles
An anti-Americanism of fools
Anti-Americanism must not become a pillar of left-wing thinking, says ALEX MILES Of all the clichés attached to the United States of America, one of those repeated most often is that it is a land of contrasts. Clichéd it may be, but the statement is also accurate. The ‘land of the free’ is also...
Iraq’s third big issue
We must look beyond the two issues that dominate discussions of Iraq, and unite in support of Iraq’s trade unions, says former MP HARRY BARNES In Britain, our minds are often focussed on two big issues concerning Iraq. First, should we have been involved in its invasion? Secondly, should our troops now be withdrawn?...
Orwell’s boy
BARRY WINTER remembers Staff Cottman, life-long socialist and veteran of the Spanish Civil War, who died last year. Last September, after a year’s illness, Stafford Cottman died. Staff was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, a life-long socialist and trade unionist. What impressed me most about him was his comradely warmth, abundant energy...
Critical times in a back to front world
BARRY WINTER went to the Critical Politics conference in November, and found a Left still confused about how to respond to new times. Organised by the Signs of the Times collective, the intellectual heirs of Marxism Today, this conference was really back to front. It concluded where it might, more usefully, have begun, with...
Spring 2000
Labour Watch David Connolly wonders what happened to one member one vote Pushed into enemy hands Bernard Hughes on how the leadership is turning even some of its closest friends into foes Impassable impasse? Paul Dixon wonders what next for the Northern Ireland peace process A task of two halves Adam Brown reports on...
Summer 2000
Labour Watch David Connolly ponders the latest example of new Labour-style democracy Republicans and the choreography of peace Paul Dixon wonders how Republican leaders have sold the Good Friday Agreement For Queen and country … and socialism Barry Winter meets working class unionists who tell it like it is Zimbabwe in crisis William Brown...
Telling the troubled truth?
The idea of a truth process in Northern Ireland is gaining credibility. But it’s not without its problems, as GARY KENT reports. The Irish republican leader Gerry Adams is the latest politician to raise the possibility of a truth commission in Northern Ireland, after a generation of conflict still known euphemistically as “the Troubles”....
Winter 2001
Labour Watch Ann Black describes the underground manoeuvres which damage democracy at the National Policy Forum Still time to change trains Bernard Hughes picks over the origins and entrails of the railway crisis Gone but not forgotten Jean Wood reports on the plight of Kosovan refugees recently sent back to their own country dot.com/sustainedgrowth?...
Autumn 2001
Developing democracy Stephen Yeo argues that cooperative politics can help to address the democratic deficit The ILP and social change Barry Winter outlines the ILP’s perspective and explains why it’s had to change Collective action and the sustainable renewal of Britain Sean Creighton calls for a better understanding of mutual organisations, and argues that...
Impassable impasse?
As the Northern Ireland peace process lurches into another crisis, PAUL DIXON asks, what next? When the IRA announced its ceasefire in September 1994 it was always difficult to see what kind of agreement could be reached between loyalists and republicans. The propaganda war and real (physical) war between unionists and nationalists over the years...
Summer 2002
The challenge of mutuality The ILP’s Weekend School in Scarborough at the beginning of May 2002 brought ILPers and non-ILPers together to discuss the politics of cooperation, mutuality and social enterprise Mutuality and radical politics Sean Creighton traces the historical association of mutual organisations and the labour movement, and questions what the ‘new mutualism’...