National

Salman Shaheen writes on Thatcher’s continuing legacy and the need to defeat it. Margaret Thatcher died today. They say you should not speak ill of the dead, so I shan’t be writing any long obituaries. Thatcher was my ideological opposite, after all. Born in the year of the miner’s strike, I was too young to […] Read more »

I took a while before deciding to sign Ken Loach’s statement, says Mark Perryman. Like many I’ve had my fingers burnt more than a few times investing hope in such initiatives. I keep on my mental turntable The Who track ‘won’t get fooled again’. But 7000 signatures in the space of a few weeks and an incredible […] Read more »

David Proudlove is the Left Unity organiser for Crewe. Here he reflects on political life and his hopes for a new party of the left I first heard about the great Ken Loach’s latest film towards the end of last year, and it has to be said, its timing is just about perfect. Spirit of […] Read more »

Steve Lytton began to be active politically during the Vietnam War protests, and then as NUS secretary at his college. Upon qualifying, he became a member of the executive of his local NUT branch, before leaving to work on a newspaper in Moscow. Upon returning to the UK he joined the import department of progressive […] Read more »

In the industrialised countries the general correlation is the higher per capita incomes, the higher the proportion of immigrants in the economy. Many OECD economies have both higher incomes and higher levels of immigration than Britain, explains Michael Burke Political parties in Britain have once more begun to talk about immigration, especially in the wake of […] Read more »

In the first part of a two-part essay, Ed Rooksby, assesses the economic crisis today and sketches some broad strategic principles for a radical left party in Britain. It must be clear now to all those with some grip on reality that Osborne’s austerity strategy simply isn’t working. The most recent figures show that UK […] Read more »

David Wilson who is now the Left Unity organiser for Islington North reflects on the state of society that has led him to join up. Our political system is built on massive corruption, obscene wealth in the hands of the 1%, racism at home, wars abroad and the deliberate rape and wastage of the earth’s […] Read more »

Over the last two weeks more than 7,000 people have signed up to the call to discuss a new party of the Left in Britain. Across the country more than 70 local groups have been formed which are not only discussing how to set up this party but taking action as well – whether against […] Read more »

Trade union activist Ellenor Hutson and her beautiful baby share some thoughts on the Bedroom Tax I am sitting in the community centre on my estate, attending a meeting on the Bedroom Tax. 25 people have turned out. Not too bad for a weekday evening, but then these are worried people. A lot of them […] Read more »

  Keston Sutherland is the new Left Unity organiser for Brighton. He is a lecturer at Sussex university where he has given the students full support in their recent occupation. I am a 36 year old Brighton resident and a Reader in English working at the University of Sussex. I teach poetry, Marxist theory, Samuel Beckett […] Read more »