Category: Politics
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What if your union fails to represent you?
I’m very fortunate I suppose, that I stayed with Unite despite its political failures in recent years — I had been wondering about switching to a union that’s kept faith with socialism but this week, I found myself very glad I’m in Unite. Four unions – ASLEF, the Musicians’ Union, USDAW and Unison have stated…
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The enemy of my enemy
I thought Magdalen Berns was our queen. Heroes don’t die just because they die. She gave her life for us. She did. She knew she didn’t have much left, but she used it – with stunning energy, to teach us to rediscover our voices, after the trans lobby thought they had successfully cowed women into…
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Climate crisis: we’re sunlighting!
Good news! We are united! One of the startling things I learned at the excellent People’s Emergency Briefing event held in Bexhill (St Peter’s Community Centre, 3rd July) was that 86% of the population want the government to take urgent action to deal with the climate crisis. I mean, to deal with the climate crisis.…
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Echoes, encounters, encampments
The film starts with a shot of empty grass surrounded by a tall fence. “Create a space for people to gather, and they will do it,” says someone remembering the recent encampment. I’m thinking about Greenham Common, about the New Age Travellers’ encampments, then about Parliament Square, how I stood and stared at that ancient…
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For a Materialist Left: Photos and videos
I said I’d post again when the videos were released. Links below. Thanks to Ian McNee for a smashing set of photos here’s a selection… All the speeches will be available soon on the Materialist Left YouTube channel, for which, thanks goes to Inside Film. Here are the first two panel sets… Panel 1: Mary…
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An Extraordinary Materialist Meeting
Actually, I had the cheek to wonder on the way home if the conference I attended on Saturday was unique. It’s certainly unusual in the current political climate… The materialist left That means people who profess a politics based on sound, evidenced analysis of what’s going on in our society. It means acknowledging the very…
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Toilets, toilets, toilets. TOILETS!
In the EHRC guidance on sex-based provisions, this government (that has apparently sweated over this composition for a year) advises trans people to use the accessible toilets if necessary. Meanwhile, all the people you’d expect to be standing up for women are making a ballyhoo about how terrible this all is for trans people. I…
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Fly Trap
I remember reading The Fly as a teenager. I’d seen the film – the 1950s version, not the 1980s one – we kids were rather keen on sitting up late on Saturdays to watch daft old horror movies but, as you’re probably already thinking, Katherine Mansfield’s story of the same name is nothing like that.…
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Why the #FreePalestine movement can never be defeated
People who listen to the news, listen to the politicians, are very good at jeering at individuals, or individual projects, which are part of the global effort to bring aid to Gaza (more about this down there, under the heading Aid for Gaza). What they miss is that the meaning of aid here is not…
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Requiem for a Woman’s Soul
I’ve been trying since last week to write a blog about the election but so far, it’s a mess. It’s a mess because I keep failing to sleep at bedtime and/or I wake at the very weird hour of four ay em. That’s not, actually, because of the latest horror story to come out of…
Kay Green 