Popular capitalism, unpopular socialism
NEVER mind popular capitalism for a minute; let’s talk a bit about unpopular socialism first. Some readers might be surprised to read that proposition as the opening line of a blog post by a lifelong lefty. But in Britain at least, the truth is support for socialism of any stripe is so low it barely [...]
Don’t count on McCluskey to make the break
LEEDS United defender Norman Hunter, renowned for his perhaps overly robust approach to defence, famous advised young footballers to ‘get your retaliation in first’. The wisecrack metamorphosed into something of a New Labour catchphrase in the mid 1990s, with the line slightly altered to ‘get your betrayal in first’. Recent statements from both Ed Balls [...]
British Marxists, Jews and world war two: response to Colin Shindler
SOAS professor Colin Shindler can’t quite bring himself openly to state that British Marxists would have collaborated with the Wehrmacht had Germany invaded Britain in 1940. So he implies it instead, resorting to the transparently shoddy device of putting a question mark after each de facto accusation contained in his essay for the Jewish Chronicle last week. [...]
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 [...]
#occupylsx: yes, but what are they advocating instead?
YES, but what are they advocating instead? That question is rapidly becoming the standard rightwing putdown of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the similar demonstrations it has inspired elsewhere, now including London’s #occupylsx. Hacks penning hatchet jobs on this one have two ways into the story. One option is to start by stressing widespread [...]
Why they desecrated Marx’s grave
I’M NOT quite sure why I find pictures of swastikas crudely sprayed on Jewish or Muslim graves more shocking than the sight of, say, similar racist graffiti on the shutters of ethnic minority-owned corner shops. In our culture, disrespect for the dead remains perhaps the ultimate statement of visceral hatred. Reports that the tomb of [...]
A very British M-15
MARKETING consultants nowadays offer a more incisive guide to contemporary radicalism then leftist theoreticians of the more traditional variety, and the prediction seems to be that we will soon see a lot more of the youth protests now sweeping Spain and other European countries. Gerald Celente, seemingly something of a celebrity in the US trend forecasting [...]
Blue Labour: more Old Labour than it thinks
I HAVE not been able to track down the origin of the slogan ‘family, faith and flag’. But it does have the ominous ring of a motto that could have been advanced by an obscure Croatian proto-fascist splinter group in the 1930s. Given Blue Labour’s patently puerile desire to secure column inches by the adoption of a [...]
The need for a reality-based left
CRITICS often accuse revolutionary socialists of being ‘out of touch with reality’. Usually, what they mean is something like well to the left of Brendan Barber’. But let me offer a sobering thought to anybody who locates themselves in the Marxist political tradition: the claim isn’t always wrong, is it? Some of the more celebrated idiocies [...]
The 2010 generation
THE Black Bull pub on Whitechapel High Street was always a pretty down at heel boozer, standing out as noticeably grubby even in the days when most pubs in that area fairly merited that description. Unsurprisingly, it was turned into an Indian restaurant several years ago, and that’s no great loss to East End drinkers. But [...]
