Summer 2011

Remaking our Music Barry Winter introduces the ILP’s new perspective The Politics of the Coalition Matthew Brown reviews the Tory-led government Refounding Labour? Will Brown asseses Labour’s party reform consultation Is Compass losing direction? Matthew Brown looks at Compass’s decision to open up Roma’s last stand Chris Hall recalls the life of a POUM...

Spring 2010

Time for the Tobin tax? Gary Kent argues that the financial crisis makes the case for a transaction tax even more compelling Taking the temperature at Copenhagen William Brown reflects on the disappointing outcome to climate change talks in Copenhagen Lies, hubris and neo-liberalism Barry Winter examines how capitalism went from boom to bust and where it...

ILP Weekend

  Crunch Times: Politics And The Crisis   ILP Round Table Seminar  Esplanade Hotel, Scarborough  13th-14th June 2009 Saturday   13th June   2.00 – 5.00pm Sunday     14th June   9.30am – 12.30pm   Session 1: The economic crisis • What just happened?  • What does it tell us about capitalism? Session 2: The mess we’re in...

Listening to the ‘lickspittle lackeys’

BERNARD HUGHES spends an entertaining evening with a group of ex-Commies-cum-carping columnists The title of the meeting asked, ‘Where do ex-Communists go?’ Well, about 70 of them went to London’s Institute for Contemporary Arts to listen to the opinions of five figures on this question. The composition of the panel, indeed, might also have...

No solutions, much confusion

JONATHAN TIMBERS searches for the soul of social enterprise but finds a rather worrying state of mind This event was billed as ‘social enterprise solutions to 21st century challenges’. It was held in the upmarket Manchester International Convention Centre in late January 2005. I attended the conference in the hope that by the end...

Demos and disillusionment

PHIL DORÉ recounts his personal and painful journey from the Stop the War Coalition to Labour Friends of Iraq In March 2003, as the war began in Iraq, I found myself sitting in the middle of a road in Cardiff alongside hundreds of anti-war protestors. I was one of what the media had dubbed...

This world of ours

ERIC PRESTON introduces the themes of the ILP’s forthcoming weekend of discussion and political review ‘Many of us are, I believe, confused by the world we have created for ourselves in the west. We are confused by the consequences of capitalism, whose contribution to well-being cannot be questioned, but which divides rich from poor,...

Is there a song for solidarity?

SARAH BRACKING unpicks the liberal agenda behind Live8 and the G8 summit. The majority of the people attending Live8, and the demonstrations surrounding the G8, wanted no more nor less than to reduce poverty. But helping poor people in other countries raises problems, particularly when the language of benevolence doesn’t explain the structural issues...

Unite against terror

The following statement was published on the internet after the bombings in London on 7 July 2005 Terrorist attacks against Londoners on 7 July killed at least 54 people. The suicide bombers who struck in Netanya, Israel, on 12 July ended five lives, including two 16 year old girls. And on 13 July, in...

A challenge remaining

Judging by the Compass conference in June, the left has yet to develop a coherent political strategy, says WILL BROWN Lenin is not a figure one immediately associates with the soft left yet there he was on a giant screen at the front of a packed conference hall proclaiming ‘The victory of ideas needs...

Uniform ruling

BEN TURLEY reports on the implications of a House of Lords’ ruling in the school uniform court case In my article, ‘Beggars Belief’, in the last edition of Democratic Socialist, I reported on the Court of Appeal case of Begum v Denbridge High School. The court decided that the school had infringed the right...

The end of Fukuyama

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS explains why the latest pronouncements from Francis Fukuyama miss the mark I have a feeling that it must have been a disappointing week for Francis Fukuyama, whose essay ‘After Neoconservatism’ (adapted from his upcoming book America at the Crossroads) was awarded seven pages in the 19 February 2006 New York Times Magazine. The...