tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50948062024-02-07T12:12:24.512+00:00GAUCHEUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger794125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-41420624064590762722015-12-30T15:57:00.002+00:002015-12-30T15:57:38.617+00:00INTERNATIONALISMUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-33953497751457263512015-12-29T13:41:00.002+00:002015-12-29T13:41:55.796+00:00LEFT TO THEIR OWN DEVICESLittle Atoms, 28 December 2015
A new outro for Moscow Gold? by me and Kevin Davey online here.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-58145599892341160452015-12-22T22:20:00.003+00:002015-12-22T22:20:24.573+00:00MERRY XMAS'All over the war-wrecked areas from Brussels to Stalingrad, other uncounted millions are living in the cellars of bombed houses, in hide-outs in the forests, or in squalid huts behind barbed wire. It is not so pleasant to read almost simultaneously that a large proportion of our Christmas turkeys will come from Hungary, and that the Hungarian writers and journalists – presumably not the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-63416254427087457372015-12-02T23:40:00.001+00:002015-12-02T23:40:35.763+00:00SYRIA ONCE MOREIt's difficult to know where to begin on this, but here goes:
The proposal to expand UK airstrikes against Isis from Iraq to Syria is not massively important in military terms. The RAF is already running anti-Isis strikes on targets in Iraq and it's clear that targets in Syria have already actually been hit. The Cameron government's proposed deployments are minimal.
It's important symbolicallyUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-81497528036249045702015-11-26T19:56:00.000+00:002015-11-26T19:57:09.017+00:00THE MCDONNELL MAO JOKE
If there was any point to throwing Mao’s Little Red Book at George Osborne, it was to have a go at him for cosying up to the Chinese government, which McDonnell believes is dumping steel on the world market and putting British steelworkers out of work.
It might have made sense if McDonnell had used an incendiary Mao quote about how the proletarian revolution will use all its cunning to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-58064681820444668212015-11-20T16:59:00.000+00:002020-05-06T09:57:29.494+01:00ONCE AGAIN, CORBYNJeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader marks the most radical break in Labour politics since 1931. His overwhelming victory means that the hard left, marginal since the defeat of Bennism in the mid-1980s (except to a certain extent in the Ken Livingstone mayoral operation, in the campaign against the war in Iraq and in some unions), is now the central command of the Labour Party – at least in Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-11712817522177989492015-08-13T13:14:00.003+01:002015-09-19T01:49:35.697+01:00THOUGHTS ON CORBYN1. A large part of the bien pensant liberal middle class did not believe what happened in front of their eyes at the general election. They thought Labour had done the right things to win and that Ed Miliband was a decent bloke who’d been much misunderstood. This response was particularly widespread among young Labour voters and others with a poor sense of how many British voters look at their Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-46930225569717889032015-05-22T21:29:00.000+01:002015-09-13T22:18:47.280+01:00MY ELECTORAL HUMILIATIONHere's the result (I lost):
ANDERSONPaul JamesLabour1003
GORDONPippaUK Independence Party 542
HOREMartinLiberal Democrats183
POPERichard William John Conservative2284
WHITEJamesGreen206
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-64558285799473440042015-05-07T11:24:00.003+01:002015-05-07T11:24:39.086+01:00VOTE LABOURUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-6956286793346365462015-04-04T18:29:00.001+01:002015-04-13T14:36:37.386+01:00CHINA FROM THE MARGINS
I’m just back in Britain from a whistle-stop tour of China,
where I was speaking at the Bookworm Literary Festival, a fortnight-long
talkfest organised by the leading independent English-language bookshop in
China. I went with Anna Chen, who was one of the headline
stars of the show – and it was one of the most stimulating foreign trips I’ve
ever made.
The itinerary was hectic. Bookworm has Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-73644305163530777382015-03-06T20:06:00.000+00:002015-04-06T20:11:34.781+01:00THE STRUGGLE STARTS HERE
I'm standing again for Bixley ward in Ipswich for the borough council. Vote for me!
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-78531117721335719942015-01-20T01:10:00.001+00:002015-01-20T01:17:12.824+00:00SOLIDARITYUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-37441383604670342992015-01-07T20:18:00.001+00:002015-04-06T20:18:50.756+01:00LOWER THAN VERMINUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-57668393311318050072014-12-02T20:21:00.000+00:002015-04-06T20:22:12.531+01:00NOT A LOT HAPPENING HEREI'm busy with new jobs and working on Aaargh! Press stuff, so not a lot is going to be posted here for the next six months.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-84723743907605625882014-09-17T21:03:00.002+01:002014-09-17T21:03:24.830+01:00VOTE YES"Just vote yes tomorrow. You'll regret it if you don't. Make a bit of history," says former editor of Labour weekly Tribune who tried to get Gordon Brown to stand as candidate for leadership of the Labour Party in 1992.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-68648549655651735632014-07-15T22:15:00.001+01:002014-07-16T21:35:01.624+01:00WHO ARE YOU?I've just realised that I've never heard of, let alone met, most of the Tories who have been promoted in the reshuffle. Who is Cynthia Morbid, dynamic Eurosceptic former computer-games entrepreneur and corporate lawyer? Who is Giles Bottomfeeder, highflying grammar-school-educated onetime impresario of the centre-right think-tank Dildos? I think we need a new Andy Roth...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-78981133724293620912014-06-28T23:05:00.002+01:002014-06-28T23:37:03.373+01:00NO TO #levesonnowSome of the more ludicrous elements of Brian Leveson's proposals for press regulation were toned down in the royal charter – but the threat of punitive damages in libel and privacy cases for non-signatories to the charter remains. That is de facto licensing.
And I'm against it.
I'm sorry, but I'm more worried about the future of Private Eye and Tribune and Index on Censorship and Red Pepper Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-44980476187865696962014-06-27T16:49:00.001+01:002014-06-28T16:47:11.255+01:00JUNCKER IS A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTIONWell, no one else is going to say this, but the choice of Jean-Claude Juncker isn't that bad. He might well be a "fag-packet federalist", but the booze'n'fags'n'federalism are his most appealing traits: the problem is his record in Luxembourg as head honcho of a dodgy tax-haven, as Francis Wheen has pointed out. The European Parliament should have the key role in appointing the European Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-67598931442745671382014-06-14T15:58:00.000+01:002014-06-16T00:32:49.512+01:00IN DEFENCE OF BERNARD CRICKThis is what I said (more or less) at the University of Lincoln symposium 'Orwell Now!' – organised by Richard Keeble, who was a colleague at City University – on 12 June. I'll be turning it into a book chapter in the next couple of months
George Orwell’s politics have always been contentious.
In his lifetime, he was a notable intellectual contrarian whose antipathy to received wisdom of all Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-78766079756614770632014-06-07T00:00:00.002+01:002014-06-07T14:49:04.606+01:00NEWARK NONSENSEThe only thing that would have turned the Newark byelection into a big national story was a UKIP victory, and it didn't happen. Instead, people voted Tory tactically to keep UKIP out, in the posh bits of the constituency at any rate – the same thing happened throughout the country in posh bits in the local elections where the affluent owner-occupiers didn't want UKIP victories damaging their Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-83479815717766662242014-05-26T12:36:00.002+01:002014-05-26T12:47:21.142+01:00FIRST THOUGHTS ON THE UKIP EARTHQUAKE1. UKIP did well, but not that well, in the local elections. Its share of the vote was lower than in 2013. This is partly down to this year’s local elections being in London boroughs, metropolitan districts and (mainly) urban districts and unitary councils – Labour’s heartlands – whereas last year’s were largely in traditionally Tory shire counties. But UKIP’s local gains this year were small Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-1895987542065002652014-05-24T13:58:00.001+01:002014-05-24T13:58:35.459+01:00566 VOTES FOR SOCIALISM
Belatedly – I've been working – many thanks to everyone who helped on the Labour campaign in Bixley ward, Ipswich, where I stood for Labour on Thursday.
I came second:
Edward Phillips (Conservative) 1,141 (48%)Paul Anderson (Labour) 566 (24%)Robert Odhams (UKIP) 504 (21%)Martin Hore (Liberal Democrat) 175 (7%)Majority: 585. Turnout: 41.86%. No change.
I was expecting to lose by a large margin,Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-91248347024873240502014-05-02T16:49:00.000+01:002014-05-04T22:15:58.113+01:00VOTE ANDERSON LABOUR IN BIXLEY 2014
I am a democratic socialist, which means I believe:
We need an equal society in which everyone has a chance to get on in life and prosper. Youth unemployment is a scandal that requires immediate concerted action by local authorities and national government. The coalition government has done nothing.
We must ensure that pensioners are properly looked after. They have worked and paid taxes Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-4786551766569450562014-04-24T22:12:00.002+01:002014-04-25T12:29:03.591+01:00WE'RE OFF!Right, nominations have closed. I'm up against a Tory, a UKIP bloke and a Lib Dem in Bixley ward in the Ipswich borough council election on 22 May (I'm standing for Labour, natch).
Nearly everyone has had the general Labour newsletter and a flashy flier from the local Tory MP, Ben Gummer, claiming that he has been personally responsible for all recent improvements to Ipswich hospital. Brass Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-51507541059814351902014-04-14T23:13:00.001+01:002014-04-14T23:14:29.442+01:00VOTE FOR ME!I am standing for Labour in Bixley ward for Ipswich borough council on 22 May. Here's the official page.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0