A civil war has erupted inside the Labour Party, initiated by the party’s minority right wing with the backing of the media. It is a battle between the ordinary labour party members and the anti-democrats in the Parliamentary Labour Party [...]
Read moreCategory "July 2016"
Hillsborough, justice and the state
Just over three years after the Hillsborough Disaster the reigning champions met in the cup semi-final against a smaller team in a stadium which was disastrously unfit for the crowds expected on the day. The teams on this occasion were [...]
Read moreThe Collaborative Commons, the Sharing Economy and the Future of Capitalism
The commons associated with the traditional village economy are long gone. There is much talk nowadays of a new collaborative commons of ideas, provided by the internet. The Enclosure of the Commons One of the fundamental processes of primitive accumulation in the [...]
Read moreManchester condemns NEC coup, defends democracy in Labour
Over three hundred people packed into the Mechanics' Institute in Manchester on 13 July, for a meeting called by Manchester Trades Council and the Manchester & Trafford branch of Momentum. Its purpose was to educate and encourage socialists to organise [...]
Read moreThe return of the status-quo socialists
When she was a communist Sylvia Pankhurst wrote that “he only school we learn at is history” and since 1920 we have had a lot to learn. The Soviet Union and its satrapies fell into barbarism and were eventually dissolved [...]
Read moreLabour: The Broad Church collapses
"You don't have the right to lead just because you've been elected". Harriet Harman MP, Camberwell & Peckham Constituency Labour Party meeting, 30 June 2016 Since its inception the Labour Party has talked about being a broad church, by which it means [...]
Read moreMuhammad Ali – The Greatest
One of the unique qualities of human beings it seems to me is the degree to which our whole lives can be influenced, affected and shaped by fellow humans that we never meet. We can even have relationships of a [...]
Read moreReport from The Lane, Camberwell & Peckham CLP
The Lane ward in Camberwell and Peckham constituency Labour Party met on 7 July with 51 people present. In the previous week 72 had joined the ward! The meeting began with a lively debate on whether an emergency motion, calling [...]
Read moreReport from Whitstable, Canterbury CLP
I re-joined the Labour Party as a member of Canterbury CLP, Whitstable branch in May 2016 after a long absence because of my disillusionment with the Labour government under Tony Blair, an unaccountable leader who took us into an unnecessary [...]
Read morePCS conference report: With friends like these
Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) Conference 2016 in Brighton was exciting. Delegates seemed to have more of a spring in their step this year, for various reasons. But I think a lot of the spring was due to the [...]
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