As Cameron woos the co-op movement, JACK STREET asks if the co-op ideal is being hijacked to help privatise the state....
Turbulent Times and the Politics of Interdependence
In the 18th century the US produced a Declaration of Independence. Today we need to declare our interdependence, says BARRY WINTER, and this should be a guiding feature of the world we live in....
Young people to lobby Parliament
Hundreds of young people will travel to Westminster on Tuesday 25 October to warn MPs that the youth service will soon be the first public service to fall under the coalition’s austerity axe....
Trying to make sense of Hackney’s riots
Local resident MATTHEW BROWN sifts through the context and consequences of the riots which erupted on Hackney's streets and estates on 8 August....
Cameron’s Con continues
With the Office for Civil Society – the supposed engine room of the prime minister’s ‘Big Society’ – hit by a hefty 61 per cent cut in funding, the government’s con is well and truly exposed, Unite the union says today. The cut to the Office for Civil Society is just one of the...
Fighting Cuts To Legal Aid
As the controversial Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill moved into committee stage this week, HARRY BARNES called for campaigners to defend current legal provisions. “Because the proposed legislation covers a wide area, the issue of the massive cuts in legal aid is in danger of failing to get a full and fair...
Pension lies
The government’s repeated lies about pensions have been exposed by the Today programme’s Evan Davis, writes WILL BROWN. For the second day in a row Government Ministers have been unable to defend Cameron’s lie that the public sector pension scheme is ‘going broke’. The claim was made by Cameron in a speech on Monday...
The Politics of the Coalition
MATTHEW BROWN reviews the birth and record of the Tory-led government and considers the current short-comings of the anti-cuts movement. Let’s go back a year. In fact, let’s go back more than a year, to shortly before the general election when a Conservative majority appeared almost inevitable. It may seem difficult to believe now,...
Remaking our Music
BARRY WINTER introduces the ILP’s new perspective document, The ILP: Our Politics, arguing that our political morality forms the basis of our critique of capitalism. When you look back at the history of the left in politics, whether in the UK or internationally, you could be forgiven thinking that with its often terrible record,...
A Sustaining Weekend
Around 40 ILP members, friends and fellow travellers gathered in Scarborough on 7/8 May for the organisations’s annual weekend school, where the politics of the ILP, the coalition government and the Labour Party came under scrutiny. “Why have people like us not given up?” asked Barry Winter at the start of two days of...
Combating the Coalition, Constructing an Alternative
The 2011 ILP Weekend School Saturday 7 & Sunday 8 May 2011 On the agenda: the politics of the Conservative-led government and the growing opposition to the cuts the challenges facing the Labour leadership rebuilding the party’s internal democracy (we will be discussing the Party’s Refounding Labour review and consultation document) the ILP’s political...
Marching for an alternative
The TUC’s anti-cuts protest was a good start, but much remains to be done to turn this widespread opposition into a movement that can really challenge the government. Saturday’s TUC march against government cuts exceeded most expectations in terms of size and the good nature of the protest. Giving a proverbial two fingers to...