In his new memoir the former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown seeks to rebrand himself as a cuddly old leftie fit for the Corbyn era. John Newsinger recalls some of the evidence to the contrary.
While there were never any serious policy differences between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, the conflict between the two men and their supporters was not just about personalities, or about who should be prime minister.
Modern capitalism’s throwaway society has created a crisis in the oceans. We must put blame where it’s due.
The BBC’s recent documentary series Blue Planet II, presented by David Attenborough, has kept viewers transfixed with its portrayal of the stunning diversity of wildlife in the oceans. It has also highlighted one of the world’s biggest environmental threats — plastic pollution.
Trump’s announcement that the US embassy will move to Jerusalem ignited protests across the world in solidarity with the Palestinians. On the steps of the Journalists’ Union building in Cairo demonstrators burned the American flag and brandished posters condemning Trump and his partner in crime, Egypt’s dictator Abdelfattah al-Sisi, while thousands took to the streets in Jordan, Lebanon, Algeria, Morocco, Iraq, Yemen and Syria.
The battle which came to be known as Passchendaele took place in Belgium in the second half of 1917. Steve Guy describes the horror faced by soldiers crawling through mud that had become like quicksand.
At the south east corner of the town of Ypres stands the Menin Gate, a vaulted arch mausoleum built of red brick and Portland stone and opened in 1927. It is a memorial to the missing British and Commonwealth soldiers from the five battles that took place in the area beyond the town during the First World War, known as the Ypres salient.
Most people on the left in Scotland will welcome the election of Richard Leonard as the new leader of Scottish Labour. Clearly identifying himself as a socialist, though not as a “Corbynista”, his vote represents a major step forward for all those looking to see Labour become a party in Scotland which challenges the Tory agenda of austerity, cuts and the scapegoating of refugees and immigrants.
The “zombie Blairites” running this north London borough are in deep trouble. Their flagship policy, the Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV), is close to collapse. Under the slogans “Social housing not social cleansing” and “No permission for demolition” the vibrant local StopHDV campaign can smell victory.
It is important that we remember the war that created the belligerent North Korean regime, writes John Newsinger, and that Britain's Labour government supported it at the time, though the public didn't.
The threat that Donald Trump made at the United Nations to “totally destroy” North Korea should not be dismissed, not least because in the early 1950s another US president, Harry Truman, actually did destroy North Korea. Moreover, the destruction of the country was carried out with the full support of the UN, indeed on behalf of the UN.
US aerial bombardment literally laid the country waste. This crime was perpetrated when there was a sensible moderate Democrat in the White House rather than a pathological right wing narcissist.
Since the publication of Philip Larkin’s Selected Letters back in 1992 we have seen a determined effort to play down his political views so that he can be restored to his place as a much-loved national poet. The Larkin exhibition at Hull University, part of the City of Culture celebrations, is an example of this.
It’s important for the left to understand what’s at stake in the independence debate, writes David Karvala.
On 1 October 2017 Catalonia is to hold a referendum on the question “Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic?”
The Spanish state aims at all costs to stop the vote, with administrative and judicial measures as well as covert operations.
Catalonia is a nation of around 7.5 million people at the eastern end of the Iberian Peninsula.
The gears are shifting in Scottish Labour, in a direction that Kezia Dugdale didn’t like, as evidenced by her resignation as leader.
She stood down immediately after Jeremy Corbyn’s tour of Scotland in late August, which saw him speak to thousands of supporters — including in Glasgow at the Govanhill Against Racism Carnival and the Central Mosque.
Corbyn has set his focus on developing his support in Scotland through the Campaign for Socialism (CfS) group.
