Salman Shaheen speaks to Ken Loach about the director’s hopes for founding a new party to the left of Labour, and what it can learn from new media and the social movements that have built up around it. Ken Loach has just returned from Ireland where he has been shooting Jimmy’s Hall, a film following […]
Ken Loach discusses his hopes for Left Unity Read More »
When Russell Brand called for revolution last month it struck a chord with hundreds of thousands of British people. Not simply because a long-haired dandy known for his tight leather trousers and desire to defile the granddaughter of Manuel from Fawlty Towers surprised us with his eloquence and political passion to trounce a tired Jeremy
The drudgery of revolution Read More »
Austerity has extracted the last vestiges of “compassion” from conservatism, distilling what remains into policies so poisonously unfair they have led people unable to cope with the bedroom tax to suicide and self-harm, while thousands more are forced to choose between heating and eating. For those who want to see a market-driven economy with a
Let’s stop subsidising big companies to exploit poor people Read More »
The storm has blown away the last of the summer. Winter is on its way. And for Britain’s poorest families, forced by a soaring cost of living and the government’s austerity onslaught to choose between heating and eating, it promises to be a winter of discontent. George Osborne may be cheering the country’s return to
Left Unity will fight for the poor if Labour won’t Read More »
I have a letter in the Evening Standard responding to the policies Labour finally announced at its conference this week and arguing that it must go further if it really wants to address the plight of hard-up people.
Letter in the Evening Standard: Labour is just tinkering around the edges Read More »
Long before I’d ever been on an anti-war march or read of book of Marx, the first spark of left wing thought emerged in my brain as I was growing up listening to The Levellers. It was this Brighton-based folk-punk outfit that provided the voice of a generation opposed to repressive Tory rule, sticking two
There can be few on the progressive side of the political spectrum who have not yet heard of the rapid rise of Left Unity movement. Ken Loach’s appeal to found a new party of the left was greeted enthusiastically by 10,000 people who have since gone on to establish 100 local groups across the country
If Left Unity doesn’t provide an alternative, who will? Read More »
It had been almost a decade since I’d last stood in Hyde Park to protest something terrible. On 20 October last year, it was bad to be back, desperately trying to stop another government ruining millions more lives, this time not with bombs but budget cuts. Perhaps the most unusual sight that day was the
Why Miliband’s trade union reforms are good for the left and for democracy Read More »
The Guardian’s John Harris has written a brilliant feature on the rise of Left Unity, which has hit the shelves just as Miliband prepares to face the wrath of the TUC conference as he presses ahead with his plans to reform the Labour-union link. I spoke to Harris last week and he quotes me warmly
Guardian’s John Harris: Is it time for a left wing UKIP? Read More »
On the back of last week’s article in the New Statesman, I was back on Voice of Russia, the Russian world service radio station, having a very interesting discussion with Scott Craig on why we need a new party of the left, what it might stand for, and why splitting Labour’s vote is a good
Appearance on Voice of Russia: Founding a new party Read More »
