Poll: how well will McDonnell do?
If Newsnight can organise a poll that quizzes a pathetic 30 punters on the Labour leadership contest and tout the outcome as somehow meaningful, Dave’s Part can do even better. So on the righthand column below the links, you have the chance to voice an opinion on what percentage of the electoral college John McDonnell [...]
John Pilger on Latin America
Twenty years ago, I decided to become a journalist because of my admiration for Paul Foot, John Pilger and Christopher Hitchens. In that order. Using the mainstream media to put over socialist ideas to millions of people– and these day I am lucky enough to get that chance about a dozen times a year – [...]
Labour leadership: Reid in the lead
The McDonnell campaign has just issued a press release under the slightly breathless headine ‘McDonnell matches Brown in poll and calls for televised debate between Reid, Brown and McDonnell’. Sounds good, until you read the small print: ‘BBC Newsnight commissioned US pollster Frank Luntz to ask 30 voters who they preferred out of six potential [...]
New Labour: pimp my conference
Peter Mandelson – pictured left – has opened his trap again, making it clear that New Labour interest in trade unions is restricted to cashing their affiliation cheques ‘[Unions] feel they have been shut out of the party but that was their choice to reject New Labour,’ the EU commissioner told a Progress rally. Hello? [...]
Labour NHS cuts: a gift to the BNP
Labour’s massive plans cuts in the NHS – see earlier posts on the site – are playing into the hands of the British National Party, Labour leadership contender John McDonnell – pictured left – has warned. For instance, one of the accident and emergency departments targeted for early closure is in Burnley. As McDonnell points [...]
Back to the 1980s
After 25 years of involvement in leftwing politics, I’d just like to take the chance to reflect briefly on some of the dramatic changes we have all witnessed since the early eighties. When I first arrived in London as a young student in September 1981, the capital was of course in the grip of a [...]
Clare Short: Labour voter?
Clare Short and the Labour Party seem likely to part company, well, er … shortly, so to speak. So there will be no harm done if I break a confidence I have been sitting on for a couple of years. I did know Clare a little while I worked for Tribune. Indeed, one of the [...]
Friday open thread
Hey, it’s Friday. And my desire to post every day has run into the unusual necessity to put in 13 hours at the day job. So, in emulation of a move pioneered by several other blogs, I hereby declare this an open thread. I’ll probably regret it later. Bookmark It
For Enver Hoxha there is no death
If there was ever a contest to decide the most repressive Stalinist dictatorship of all time, Enver Hoxha’s Albania – flag pictured left – would probably finish a close second to Cambodia under Pol Pot. During the old monster’s years at the top, one in three Albanians either spent time in a labour camp or [...]
Balfour Beatty: blacklisting trade union activists?
The practice of employers running ‘blacklists’ – lists of trade union activists and workers with leftist political affiliations, in order to vet job applicants – was commonplace until comparatively recently. The best-known organisation of this kind was an extreme rightwing grouping known as the Economic League, which operated from 1919 until officially being wound up [...]
