N30 open thread
‘The collapse of decent pension provision in the private sector is not much of an argument for cutting provision for nurses.’ – Philip Stephens, Financial Times. I’M SHORTLY off to display private sector wealth creator solidarity with public sector colleagues by joining the London N30 demo. Workers of the world unite, and all that. The comments [...]
Marxism in China: it’s a museum piece
SOMEHOW the most vibrant capitalist economy on the planet still lends itself ideological legitimation by claiming adherence to Marxism. What is happening in China plays havoc with key theoretical assumptions of the socialist left and the free market right alike. How does the obvious disjunction between base and superstructure, at least at the level of [...]
N30: trade unions only look dead
HARDLINERS. Militants itching for a fight. Michael Gove is in no doubt about who is responsible for N30. Yet there are a couple of fundamental flaws with the education secretary’s assertion that those taking part in Wednesday’s public sector stoppage are being manipulated by an unrepresentative clique of hard left union bosses. For a start, [...]
N30: join the private sector wealth creators’ bloc
GOOD thing I won’t have to take David Cameron up on his stupid idea of bringing the kids into the office when teachers go on strike next Wednesday. I can just picture the chaos that would inevitably result. The 11 year old would sulk in a corner all day long, telling anyone who politely introduced themselves [...]
Ahmed Faraz case: when selling books equals ‘priming people for terrorism’
VINCENT Tabak often looked at online strangulation pornography prior to his murder of Joanna Yeates. Despite that, the operators of the websites that cater for this particularly repulsive fetish are not on trial as accomplices to murder. Nor is anyone suggesting that Christian retailers should be jailed for selling the Bible, even though twisted organisations [...]
The temporary popularity of euroausterity
JUST months ago, Spain was convulsed by the M-15 mass movement, which mobilised hundreds of thousands of protestors against the appalling privations facing the nation’s youth. Last weekend, it returned a centre-right government. That’s not the whole story. The hard left alliance Izquierda Unida doubled its vote to poll 7%, although that is still well [...]
Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion: who gets to read bad books?
KARL Popper singled out Plato’s ‘Republic’ as the blueprint for all modern totalitarianisms, while many other academics accord that status to Rousseau’s ‘The Social Contract’. I polished both of them off as a student, and I have kept the copies. Just like with the booze, I soon got tempted by the harder stuff. Show me a forbidden [...]
Greece, Italy: now markets choose prime ministers
I AM not entitled to vote in either Greece or Italy; even if I were, I would not support either George Papandreou or Silvio Berlusconi, anyway. In the normal run of events, I would greet their departure from office with Zen-like equanimity. But what we have seen in the last week or so is not the [...]
Youth unemployment: Young Labour should make its voice heard
WHEN I was a member of the Labour Party Young Socialists, we prided ourselves on being as much of a pain in the arse to the adult party as was humanly possible. In those rare moments when we were not heatedly discussing finer points of the Transitional Programme and passing resolutions demanding the nationalisation of the [...]
Hinchingbrooke hospital: lessons of Southern Cross
SOUTHERN Cross became a FTSE 250 company on the back of the profits it made from looking after the elderly. Earlier this year it realised that it could no longer afford the rent on the care homes it once owned, but had sold off and leased back. Unlike most business models that don’t pan out, [...]
