Thatcher’s Island
Britain is going through both an identity crisis and a process of political disintegration – both of which can trace their roots to the great national project of recent decades: neoliberal reform.
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Raven Hart is co-founder of the Bristol Cooperative Alliance, an organisation that aims to promote a decentralised economy that empowers local communities and facilitates democratic self-determination.
Britain is going through both an identity crisis and a process of political disintegration – both of which can trace their roots to the great national project of recent decades: neoliberal reform.
The launch of the National Health Service was accompanied by ‘Your Very Good Health’ – a witty, clever and progressive public information film that helped to win support for socialised medicine.
Artificial intelligence is being deployed at an increasingly rapid rate by corporate managers. Instead of vague conversations about its ethics, we need to be talking about how workers can use it too.
Last year, the government made home-use abortion pills available to all. It’s now considering going back to clinic appointments – despite the time, money, and stress that at-home pills save.
Radical post-colonial leaders like Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere didn’t just want independence — they wanted to break the political and economic order that kept the Global South in subjugation.
Patrick Keiller’s classic 1994 film ‘London’ combines a left-wing critique of the development of Britain’s capital with an ambitious aesthetic – but more than 25 years later, even its version of the city seems utopian.
The Durham Miners’ Gala is an institution of the British labour movement – but behind it, the Redhills building, Pitman’s Parliament and long-lasting Association provide a glimpse into the power of workers’ self-organisation.
Covid-19 has exposed the crisis in our NHS and the need for a radical overhaul. It’s time to restore a proper public health system that puts patients and workers before the interests of private profit.
A handful of Big Tech corporations now wield more power than most national governments. It’s time to subject them to democratic control – before their power erodes democracy.
Any strategy for combatting climate change that doesn’t focus on delivering well-paid, unionised jobs is doomed to fail – we need a vision of a Green New Deal with workers at its heart.
In the 1920s and ’30s, German publisher Willi Münzenberg built a network of magazines, newspapers and film studios that terrified big business interests. It became the largest left-wing media operation in history.
Last June, France’s second city of Marseille voted for a left-wing government after two decades of conservative rule – but maintaining a broad coalition amid Covid-19 financial pressures is proving difficult to manage.
By pumping billions of pounds into quantitative easing programmes, the Bank of England is propping up the asset and stock prices of the rich – in the midst of an unemployment crisis that is hammering workers.
India’s farmer protests are mounting a major challenge to the Modi regime – and the violence deployed in response shows that the government senses the threat.
This week, Grace speaks to Stansted 15 activist Ben Smoke about the hostile environment, the power of direct action, and the steady degradation of human rights in Britain.
In December, CWU members in BT Group overwhelmingly rejected the company’s plans for mass redundancies. Now they have a message: start real negotiations soon, or we ballot for industrial action.
Jeff Bezos is stepping aside as Amazon’s CEO having made a fortune of almost $200 billion. It’s an attempt at reputation rehabilitation – but he can’t escape the legacy of exploitation he leaves behind.
E. P. Thompson, author of ‘The Making of the English Working Class,’ was born on this day in 1924. His work reclaimed history for the masses – and displayed a resilient hope in their capacity to remake the world.
Philosopher Bertrand Russell died on this day in 1970. In memory of his life, we republish Michael Foot’s tribute to “the incorrigible dissenter, the foremost sceptic and exponent of free thought throughout the last half-dozen decades.”
Four years after Rafael Correa’s successor Lenín Moreno abandoned the Citizen Revolution for neoliberalism, Ecuador’s Left is back. We speak to presidential frontrunner Andrés Arauz ahead of this weekend’s election.