A Glasgow socialist heads for prison - what does this tell us about the unique world of Scotland's love of hard men
The volcanic eruption of student anger and militancy in Britain over the last few months has blown the political space wide open, making a broad-based movement against austerity thinkable. Whether or not it can grow and ultimately succeed will depend on the next steps the movement takes.
The ’12 Cuts of Christmas’, sung by student protesters on the tuition fee demonstration at Parliament Square, summed up this year’s defiantly festive spirit. You can join in the iconoclast carol with the video and lyrics in this post.
Three things were revealed by the recent wave of nationwide student protest. Firstly, the demonstrations represent a new political mood, that can manifest itself in excess and formless anger. Secondly, they cannot go on as unwieldy, monolithic marches. Thirdly, a new infrastructure is proving capa
In 1971 a counter-insurgency manual set out an operational response to non-violent direct action protest movements as well as military insurgencies like the Provision IRA in Northern Ireland, drawing on the UK's colonial experience. Today, it holds a surprise for a new reader.
The last time this happened, the British government was hoping to combine a modern-looking commitment to nation-building with the old imperial aim of political domination. Wilkileaks shows that all too little has changed.
Social democracy is in crisis, and has been proven inadequate everywhere. We cannot just turn back the clock, and reheat the old progressive story. Instead, we are going to have to break with the politics of the past.
We must question the assertion that the Coalition government is a radical administration, on a par with the 1945 Attlee and 1979 Thatcher governments. That judgment can only be made retrospectively, in view of the legacy the Con-Dems leave behind.
We are not all in this together. Benefit changes and service cuts will have cumulative and often profoundly disruptive and painful effects on the lives of poor people, especially as they interact with existing deprivations and difficulties. Citizen's Advice Bureau adviser Deborah Padfield sets out
After the vigour and excitement of the student demonstrations against the cuts, today’s Guardian leader derides Unite’s new general secretary Len McCluskey as a ‘Bourbon’. Why? Because he proposes trade union action and strikes rather than defeatist acceptance of the government’s unjust and counte
A scribe of Britain's Labour establishment had died
