Poverty

There’s far more to be angry about in Tory Britain than a white van tweet

At last we’ve seen it. Something Ed Miliband cares about. Something that gets him fired up and passionate. A value to defend. He really loves white vans and England flags. Emily Thornberry MP’s tweet apparently made red and white Ed angrier than he had ever been. Angrier, it seems, than the Tories carving up and […]

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Nick Clegg lies

Did Nick Clegg receive a spine for Christmas, or just a second face?

Either it’s an election year, or Nick Clegg has suddenly discovered some principles. This week, George Osborne announced that there would be another £25 billion in spending cuts after the 2015 general election and around half of that would come from the welfare budget. For Clegg, who must have been given a spine at Christmas,

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Salman Shaheen and Ken Loach

Ken Loach discusses his hopes for Left Unity

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

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Tax credits

Let’s stop subsidising big companies to exploit poor people

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

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Left Unity

Why Left Unity could become Labour’s UKIP

“There is a spectre haunting Britain,” Ken Loach warned a packed conference hall at the first national meeting of a political movement in its genesis. “It’s called Nigel Farage.” There will be few more haunted by the spectre of Farage’s UKIP than David Cameron as he heads into conference season. With the European Parliament elections

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Tax credits

Working tax credits subsidise big corporations to exploit poor people

Ed Miliband’s summer of silence has been criticised from the left as the perception grows that Labour has failed to provide a coherent and effective alternative to austerity. The standard riposte to those who claim there is little that now separates Labour from the Tories is to say look at the party’s achievements in government:

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LBC

Appearance on LBC Radio: Iain Dale interviews me on Labour’s abandonment of the working class

With the People’s Assembly falling on the day Ed Miliband announced he would be sticking to Conservative spending plans, there was much talk last week of Labour abandoning the working classes. It’s not exactly news. Labour gave up on the working class two decades ago. But now I’m helping to build a new party of

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Catherine McKinnell IF Campaign

Catherine McKinnell backs country-by-country tax reporting to tackle hunger

I was honoured to chair last night’s IF Campaign debate with David Gauke, the Conservative Exchequer Secretary, Catherine McKinnell, Labour’s Shadow Exchequer Secretary, and Stephen Williams, Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Treasury Committee. The debate threw up a lot of interesting questions around tax and transparency and Britain’s crucial role in reforming the international financial

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