Bright Green hero: Senator Bernie Sanders
Today we celebrate the 1 year anniversary of an eight-and-a-half hour filibuster by independent, socialist US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Bernie's day-long speech, against extending Bush's tax cuts for…
Tescopoly: A Green’s Praise for Sammy Wilson
It’s rare that I’ll have anything very nice to say about the DUP’s Sammy Wilson, our current Northern Ireland Finance Minister. Despite a friend telling me when we were both…
Machiavelli: power, transition and institutional change
In 1513 Machiavelli provided a seminal analysis of the flow of power in Europe. The ideas defined in "The Prince" have inspired political thinkers ever since. At the time his…
A very British problem, or, how I learned to stop worrying and love renting
Norwich City Councillor Samir Jeraj responds to Alyson MacDonald's The Case Against Landlords. In the 2006 film Thank You For Smoking, the anti-hero lobbyist for the tobacco industry muses about…
The alienated ‘Multitude’: ‘the Class’ of the 21st century
Throughout the 20th century development amongst workers of 'class consciousness', the subjective awareness of ones objective class interests, was seen as central to the hopes of achieving a transition away…
Northern Ireland – Still The Worst Region of the UK to be LGBT
Last Saturday saw Belfast’s annual Pride parade take to the streets. It’s a celebration that will be familiar to many cities across the world. It’s a lively day with an…
Murdoch’s media: it’s ownership, not regulation, that matters
In the coming weeks we must surely move the discussion around the News of the World from the details of phone hacking to the questions of control. Already, David Cameron…
Is ambition our choice, or our chains?
“Why have we become obsessed with ‘self-fulfillment’,” asked Shiv Malik. “Why do we now feel our jobs need to be of great global significance rather than just a living?” “We…
Tartan Trechery: Radio Caledonia and Scotland’s Lord Haw Haw
by Gavin Bowd. This article first appeared in issue 26 of Democratic Left Scotland's magazine, Perspectives. The radical right has been a noisy and sometimes menacing part of the British…
On internet history and regulation
So, we learn that one of the big areas on which the US and the UK are supposed to still have a special relationship is that of 'cyberspace'. Or rather, I learned…