Soundings are holding a workshop in Glasgow on Saturday 12 December to examine the themes of their Kilburn Manifesto, After Neoliberalism?, in relation to Scotland’s rapidly changing political context....
Osborne’s ‘Astonishing Attack’ on Working People
Chancellor George Osborne’s attempt to present himself as the champion of labour at the Conservative Party conference has come under attack from TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady after he reiterated his commitment to cutting tax credits for low-paid workers....
Is JC Labour’s New Messiah?
Only time will tell whether Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader is the beginning of the party’s renewal or yet another stage in its decay. It’s a question of head as well as heart, says JONATHAN TIMBERS. Jeremy Corbyn’s overwhelming election vcitory by a new mass Labour Party could be a sign that public discourse...
Unbalanced Britain: The Living Wage and Labour’s Future
The Rose Bowl at Leeds Beckett University was the venue for the ILP’s second Unbalanced Britain seminar on 14 March, examining the campaign for a living wage and Labour’s response. The recession and its lop-sided recovery have left millions of working people in poverty, claimed Tom Chigbo of Leeds Citizens. Addressing the latest ILP seminar...
Kilburn Manifesto: The Conference
Tickets are still available for the Soundings one-day conference in London on 21 February 2015 to celebrate the completion of the Kilburn Manifesto and to discuss and develop its ideas....
EU Citizens Combine to Oppose Corporate Trade Deals
More than 250 ‘citizens’ organisations’ from across 22 European countries have joined forces to oppose two controversial transatlantic trade deals currently being negotiated by the European Union....
Unbalanced Britain: This Sorry State
BARRY WINTER assesses the work of David Marquand and considers what it can offer a left desperately seeking some answer to society’s massive imbalance in power and wealth....
March to End UK’s Worst Ever Pay Squeeze
The Trades Union Congress is calling on thousands of people to join its three demonstrations this Saturday and rally for an end to poverty wages and a ‘real economic recovery’ that doesn’t favour the rich over ordinary employees. The three marches are being held simultaneously in London, Glasgow and Belfast “to send a message loud...
Neoliberalism and International Catastrophes
The eighth seminar in the Kilburn Manifesto series, will be held on Thursday 23 October at the Marx Memorial Library in London....
Scotland’s Referendum: Reimagining a Nation
BARRY WINTER reviews Common Weal, the new book from the Jimmy Reid Foundation, which sets out a vision for Scotland run by its people, for its people. “Scotland’s people are in a unique position – we have been invited to imagine our nation afresh.” So argues Robin McAlpine in the opening sentence of his interesting...
Scotland’s Referendum: Why the Left Should Oppose Independence
Far from being a certain route to social democracy, as some suggest, Scottish independence is a short-cut to nowhere, says WILL BROWN. We need a longer term strategy for a progressive unionist future. A key argument on the left of centre in Scotland, repeated this week by George Monbiot in the Guardian, is that independence...
Unbalanced Britain: What Future for Young People?
GREG ROBERTS is an apprentice accountant and youth campaigner in north east Derbyshire. In June he spoke to the ILP’s day school on Unbalanced Britain about life for young people in these austere times. Despite being born and spending half of my early childhood in Sheffield, I have, for the past eight years, lived on...