Egyptian workers’ dramatic revival of strikes is a direct challenge to those who argue that the working class in the Middle East—or in the Third World more generally—has been economically and politically marginalised. The strikes have often been very successful… Continue Reading
A review of Mark Phythian, The Labour Party, War and International Relations 1945–2006 (Routledge, 2007), £19.99 One response to the Iraq war has been an attempt to blame it on Tony Blair personally and to somehow exonerate the Labour Party.… Continue Reading
Revolutionaries do not determine events, nor do they predict them.1 Lenin was surprised by both 1905 and 1917. What revolutionaries can do is understand events and develop a strategy to take advantage of them. “All revolutions in history have begun… Continue Reading
On the fortieth anniversary of his assassination, eulogies on the life of Martin Luther King Jr come cheap, and often from the most unlikely quarters. The gesture is by now an almost obligatory one for American politicians, including many who… Continue Reading
The French events of May 1968 were a profound shock to General de Gaulle’s ten-year presidency and the French state. A student rebellion at the prestigious University of Paris sparked a general strike of roughly ten million workers. Twenty years… Continue Reading
Why celebrate the anniversary of 1968? Media commentators treat the year as one of student rebellion and youthful excess, but it was much more than that, as the late David Widgery explained in this article, written on the tenth anniversary… Continue Reading
January 1: US opinion polls show support for war and re-election of President Lyndon Johnson. 17: Harold Wilson’s Labour government announces major cuts package. 250 students sit in at Aston University. 22: Illegal assembly by 800 philosophy students in fascist… Continue Reading
There is a hierarchy of precedents for financial crises. In August, as things began to unravel, the initial comparisons were with the 1998 collapse of Long Term Capital Management. That is, a freak event in which the sins of a… Continue Reading
A year has elapsed since the Scottish National Party (SNP) formed its first government in the devolved Scottish Parliament. The SNP took power at a time when neoliberal strategies all but completely dominated mainstream politics.1 However, the SNP appears to… Continue Reading
Not long ago Nicolas Sarkozy in France, Angela Merkel in Germany and Kostas Karamanlis in Greece presented themselves as politicians who could do for continental European capitalism what Margaret Thatcher did for British capitalism.1 Some on the left took them… Continue Reading