As the Guardian noted, Jeremy Corbyn’s landslide victory on 12 September in the Labour leadership contest was ‘one of the most stunning electoral upsets of postwar politics.’ Billed at 200-1 by bookmakers when he entered the race in June, the Islington North MP won 59 percent of the vote, giving him ‘the biggest party mandate for any political leader in UK political history’, according to the Guardian’s chief political correspondent.
What makes Corbyn’s victory so…
The overall majority gained by the Conservatives took a lot of us by surprise. Many were expecting a minority Labour win, with some support from the Scottish National Party. Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats had the worst election night since their formation.
There’ve been many attempts to analyse Labour’s failure to win the election – were they too left or too right? Is he ‘Red Ed’ and a ‘class war zealot’ or middle-of-the-road ‘austerity-lite’? Was it the media that ‘won it’? It…
Cameron remains in Downing Street, now with a majority (having successfully cannibalised his former LibDem partners). A lot of people are understandably depressed by this, and now to top it all off Nigel Farage hasn’t even resigned as leader of UKIP.
FFS politics, give us a break.
We don’t have much say in what policies they try to force upon us – after all we had ‘Vote Tory for capitalism and austerity’ and ‘Vote Labour for the same, only a bit less and our heart isn’t…
The debate about why the Labour party lost the Westminster election matters to everyone struggling for social change in Britain. How this fiasco is understood affects our confidence and our strategies (more on this below) – whatever our attitudes to the Labour party.
If it was true that Ed Miliband’s pale blue austerity-lite Labourism was too radical…
Tell us a bit about your involvement with the antinuclear movement.
I first took part in anti-nuclear actions in the early 1980s. I went on the big anti-cruise demonstrations and went to Greenham a couple of times, for events like “Embrace the Base”. I didn't do anything much on the issue after that until the late 1990s, when I started to get alarmed about war and US foreign policy, particularly in relation to nuclear weapons. The two things that worried me were the expansion of NATO…
DEMONSTRATE Along with the national “Stop Trident” demonstration on 24 February, various opportunities for demonstrating present themselves over the coming weeks. LOBBY Several campaign groups are calling for serious lobbying of MPs on the run-up to the parliamentary debate and vote. CND are asking people to get their MPs to sign EDM 579. A Lobby Pack with details of how to go about this is available on their website. See http://www.cnduk.org or call 020 7700…
The Green Party is focusing its attention on three constituencies where it has a reasonable chance of electing a Green MP in this year’s general election: Lewisham Deptford, Norwich South and Brighton Pavilion. Britain is the only sizeable European country never to have had any Green national legislative presence.
Brighton Pavilion represents the Greens’ best chance at achieving this milestone. With nine councillors, the Greens have more representation than the other parties in…
Because it takes so many years to actually get anywhere, even in the council election, I’ve found there’s more focus on building a campaign than actually becoming a part of the “party machine”.
I’ve never felt the sort of necessary dedication needed to actually get elected for office. I’m not really a party animal.
I’ve been surprised by how much more time people spend talking about tactics than they do talking about policy.
I think so many people who stand for office…
On Wednesday 14 March, the government won a House of Commons vote to replace Britain's Trident nuclear weapons. Thanks to the campaigning efforts of the peace movement, it also suffered its biggest rebellion on a domestic policy issue since Labour came to power in 1997.
Trident vote day was a busy day for anti-nuclear campaigners, with pressure being applied from all sides. From Faslane to Plymouth, people showed their opposition to Britain's weapons of mass destruction, by lobbying,…
Following the publication of the White Paper, The Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent, in December 2006, the government promised a parliamentary debate and vote on their proposals for Trident replacement. That vote is likely to take place in the second or third week of March (date unconfirmed when PN went to press).
It is believed that MPs will only be presented with one set of proposals to vote on (the government's, naturally). Despite polls consistently…
Well we've all heard that slogan by now haven't we? Something about blue green algae? Pond slime?
Yes, David Cameron and his merry band of Tories have suddenly discovered that bicycles are The Way Forward and have turned their well-tailored be-suited backs on the luxury Rolls, the Mercs and the SUVs. Jolly good isn't it? Cameron has Two Great Men working to make sure he stays green: John Gummer (he of “eat the mad cow burger” fame) and Zac Goldsmith (an eco pin-up if ever there was…
In last month's issue of Peace News (PN2472) Eddy Canfor-Dumas made the case for a Ministry for Peace as part of the government. However, it seems he is so deeply rooted in government thinking that he didn't even feel the need to explain why a ministry should be a good idea.
We have ministries for everything that we (we? Or the government?) think is important, and obviously, peace is important, so we need a ministry as “part of government dedicated to pursuing and…
In the UK we think education is important -- so we have a ministry for education. We think health and the environment are important -- so we have ministries for them. If we think peace is important, shouldn't we have a Ministry for Peace? A part of government dedicated to pursuing and promoting peace?
But what exactly would a Ministry for Peace do? Because isn't “peace” a woolly concept that can mean almost anything?
For many peace workers,though, its meaning is clear. To work…
Readers - we have a tough one this issue, but I know you're all up to the task... The man we love to hate, the man we need to love to love... is that famous man of straw, the Rt Hon Jack (John Whitaker) Straw.
He was born on 3 August 1946 at Buckhurst Hill, Essex, and found his political voice early on. Lesser trots scattered as he shot to the top - becoming NUS president in 1969. He was called to the bar and briefly practised as a barrister, but soon he heard a higher calling, to…
There is strong public demand for debate about the future of Britain's nuclear weapons system, to which the government has recently appeared to acquiesce. But there are serious problems about the way in which it is trying to frame the debate.
The recent Greenpeace-commissioned MORI poll results show a popular preference for non-replacement, particularly when it is made clear how much taxpayers' money is actually spent on these weapons of mass destruction and what could be bought…
