Ireland: a bank with a small country attached
STAMOCAP, as all true Marxist theory nerds will recollect, is an ugly little acronym for state monopoly capitalism. It comes in Stalinist or Trot variants, but the basic idea is that modern economies are characterised by a fusion of financial capital and the state. About a decade ago I realised that the whole notion is [...]
Blairites should not destabilise Ed Miliband
IT IS good form for a chap who loses an internal party election to express his natural disappointment, heartily congratulate the victor, and thereafter pledge himself publicly to unselfish furtherance of the common cause. The problem with that David Miliband bloke is that he obviously didn’t learn no bleedin’ manners at Haverstock Hill Comp. At [...]
Cash to quit fags? It’s Thatcherism gone mad
IF SAVING two thousand quid a year and avoiding lingering painful death from any number of chronic health conditions doesn’t convince you to stop smoking, a handful of poxy WH Smith vouchers is hardly going to do the trick, is it? I only point this out because this is the logic that underlies the National [...]
Red Ed? Miliband may not even be a pinko
ON THE one hand, sections of a jubilant Labour left are turning cartwheels across the floor. On the other, the rightwing press is rehashing the kind of low level McCarthyite headlines not seen in this country since the early 1980s. Both immediate reactions to the election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader highlight the lack [...]
After Sverigedemokraterna: euronationalism and the rise of the Sweden Democrats
THERE is obviously a lot of money to be made in retailing superficially appealing flatpack furniture with a marked tendency to fall to pieces if moved even slightly. After all, IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad is one of the richest men in the world, worth an estimated $23bn. He is also a former fascist. This embarrassing [...]
‘Made in Dagenham’: why now?
ON PAPER, the idea of getting a director famed for whimsically amusing if intellectually undemanding comedy pictures to make a film about a group of women workers engaged in class struggle at the point of production seems like a non-starter. Yet hardcore Trot friends who have seen ‘Made in Dagenham’, the latest offering from Nigel [...]
Vince Cable: a populist, not a Marxist
POLITICAL theory does have a name for ritual rhetorical denunciation of fats cats and the labour movement alike, in the name of standing up for the little guy. It’s called populism, it is generally considered an ideology of the right, and it was the only –ism that the business secretary was retailing in his speech [...]
Nick Clegg: the Andrex puppy’s number two
REMEMBER Nick Clegg’s speech to the Liberal Democrat conference in 2008? That’s right, the one where he blasted David Cameron as ‘the Andrex puppy of British politics’, with the implication that the Tory leader was all PR campaign and no knickers. Remember Nick Clegg’s speech to the Liberal Democrat conference in 2009? You know, the [...]
Terry Eagleton: tragic humanism and the far left
UNITARIANISM must surely be the most laid-back denomination in contemporary Protestantism. As far as I understand the rules, even not being a Christian is no barrier to signing up. Meanwhile, those aware of the social geography of north London appreciate that Stoke Newington is the instantiation of all things Bohemian and middle class. Put the [...]
Benedict XVI: Antichrist, or just a bit confused?
THE DESIGNATION Whore of Babylon does not refer to some mythical top notch super-dirty-in- bed Iraqi chick, but to a serious theological debate over the identity to the scarlet-clad woman described in chapter 17 of the Book of Revelation. In the faith community in which I was raised, my poor old mum was always considered [...]
