BNP vote: the racism of desperation
THE white working class forms the principle electoral base of the British National Party, according to a YouGov survey commissioned by the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight. A large chunk of the left is going to hate these findings. You see, such a thing really, really should not be happening. We all know that fascism represents the [...]
Leftie men and the ‘male beauty crisis’
TOM Paulin – the sixtysomething ex-Trot poet who features regularly on late night arty-farty telly slots – reportedly charged Newsnight Review £90 for having his hair dyed, on the grounds that a boy just has to look good for the camera. The BBC allowed the claim. I’ll spare the Marxist component of my readership the [...]
Why should politicians pontificate about pop stars?
BOTH the prime minister and the leader of the opposition have been quick off the mark to offer their condolences to the family and friends of Michael Jackson. Never mind that most of the people who fall into these categories will have no idea who these creepy limey guys are anyway; what I want to [...]
Why Arab governments keep quiet about Iran
OBAMA has been widely criticised for his tardiness in openly backing the pro-Mousavi protests in Tehran, although on balance, STFU probably was the best course from a diplomatic point of view. But as far as I know, not one Arab government has yet pronounced on the situation in Iran, either for or against. That strikes [...]
Disconnect: the establishment doesn’t get it
THREE news stories from the last fortnight or so have really brought home to me the extent of the current disconnect between the establishment and the rest of the population of the United Kingdom. First came the initial announcement that Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into the Iraq war would be held being closed doors. Yes, [...]
Iran: open thread
THE exigencies of the day job preclude pontification today. Instead, I invite readers to hold forth with their opinions about developments in Iran. To get the conversation started, here’s a sample what is being said on some other British (and Irish) leftie blogs: AVPS Shiraz Socialist Socialist Unity proffers this little gem: Within their ranks [...]
Social equality: can the left convince the public?
MY ENTIRELY apolitical buddy Nick – we played in a band together in the early eighties – puts the fact that I am a socialist down to some inexplicable quirk I picked up while I was a wanky student and he was already doing a proper job of work in a bathroom supplies warehouse. While [...]
Thinking the unthinkable with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
WHENEVER an ostensibly centre-left pundit uses the magic words ‘think the unthinkable’, don’t expect the ensuing thought experiment to encompass such genuinely radical possibilities as scrapping British nuclear weapons, pulling out of Ireland, coming off the UN security council, abolishing the monarchy, or renationalizing public services. The same stipulation applies when the summer in Tuscany [...]
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
WHEN they counted the votes in the French presidential contest of 1851, it was plain that the incumbent had secured a landslide victory. Louis Napoleon – who clearly had never seriously contemplated relinquishing power after his earlier term in office – had the support of around 7.5m people, out of an electorate of just 8.0m. [...]
Lindsey dispute: in defence of wildcat strikes
PERHAPS the tactic known by the immortal franglais neologism of ‘le bossnapping’ has something to do with it. But fear of the legal consequences alone would surely be enough to stop Total giving the entire workforce of a plant in its home country the boot, with no notice whatsoever at that. So why is it [...]
