Alan Simpson, who has died aged 87, was half of one of the most talented and socially-perceptive comedy-writing partnerships of post-war Britain. He and Ray Galton created two of Britain’s best-loved comedy series, Hancock’s Half Hour and Steptoe and Son.
Alan Simpson was born in Brixton to a working class family, the son of a window-cleaner. He attended Mitcham grammar school but left early to work as a shipping clerk.
There is no doubt that the left were in the driving seat at Brighton and exuded a confidence and assurance born from the unexpectedly favourable election result in June and the subsequent turmoil and implosion of their Tory opponents.
It was particularly refreshing that socialist ideas were common currency and openly debated. What a change from the stage-managed PR presentations of recent years.
There have been protests by anti-racists against the election result in Germany last month. Far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) received 12.6 percent of the vote.
This gave them 94 MPs in the German pariliament. Although one, a former leader, immediately left the party and became an independent.
The MPs include Beatrix Von Storch who found infamy when she supported shooting refugees who approached the border. When defending her comments she said, “The use of firearms against children is not permitted,” but “women are a different matter.”
Students at Seoul National University (SNU), South Korea, have taken control of a campus building for more than 100 days so far against a plan to build a campus extension.
The plans are part of a speculative property development project. The students oppose it because the process has been undemocratic and the plans put making profits before the needs of students and staff.
The action takes place in a broader context of neoliberal restructuring driven by a president who is on the verge of impeachment.
Anti-fascist campaigner Esther Brunstein died last month. She was a survivor of the Holocaust.
She played an active role in the struggle against the far right, speaking at meetings, assemblies, trade unions and workplaces.
Esther was born in Lodz, Poland. She starts her chapter in a book of survivor accounts saying she came from “a very close-knit and enlightened working class family”.
Her parents were active members of the Bund, a socialist political organisation
The world was rocked by a monumental event in January. Not the initiation of the most right wing US government in decades, but the inauguration of the resistance to the sexism, racism and homophobia that Trump represents.
Around the globe 5 million people marched in 670 towns and cities, including 100,000 in London.
The last time the world saw such a scale and breadth of coordinated demonstrations was in February 2003 against the Iraq war.
In the US itself the numbers were even higher this time than they were during the anti-war movement.
1984 hits top spot
George Orwell’s classic book about a dystopian tyranny topped Amazon’s best-sellers chart shortly after members of the Trump administration started saying things like “Alternative facts” and, “Sometimes we disagree with the facts”.
Health service bosses said that there would be no consultation on the controversial proposals which are known as Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs). England has been divided into 44 STP “footprints” and between them they must cut £22 billion by 2020.
The government, having created a crisis in social care, is now calling for increases in council taxes to make up the shortfall in cash. An investigation in the Observer in December found “that in England 58 percent of targets for improving care in people’s homes and local communities were missed”. This has also affected the NHS as people who should be cared for earlier end up at hospital instead.
Planet on the rocks
A report in December said sea ice levels have fallen to the lowest level since satellite records began in 1979. The scientists behind the annual Arctic Report Card have said the temperature is changing faster than their ability to understand and explain it! The report said: “Accustomed to advancing our scientific disciplines at what is often called a ‘glacial’ pace, we recognise that glaciers are not so slow anymore.”
National inaction
