Image: Jonny Gios via Unsplash When the late Rhodri Morgan, as Labour’s First Minister of Wales, said that there was ‘clear red water’ between his administration and the Blair government in Westminster, he was attempting to put distance between the two countries and...
Photo: Rwendland If you told someone there was a sovereign nation where the only way the opposition party could apparently gain power was to win the approval of both the armed forces and the man who owned two of the biggest selling newspapers, they might reply, ‘Is it...
Image: Penguin Books Freedom is the beguiling yet nebulous concept at the core of a spate of recent publications. Maggie Nelson’s On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint muses on and revels in the word’s indeterminacy, while Olivia Laing’s Everybody: a Book...
Photo courtesy of the Raymond Williams Society 2021 marks the centenary of the birth of Raymond Williams, an important thinker and writer on the British left. Born in the village of Pandy on the Welsh border, he went on to study at Cambridge, fight in the second world...
Dawn Foster, who died suddenly at home in July, was so much more than a talented journalist. Raised in Newport, Wales, she was the rarest of public figures – a high-profile, working-class voice in Britain’s media landscape. On television and in print, Dawn was one of...
President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele, who accompanied his declaration that cryptocurrency would be recognised as legal tender in June by changing his Twitter profile pic to this version of himself with glowing laser eyes (Credit: Nayib Bukele) The use of...
Selma James speaks in 2019. Image credit: ECP Sex, Race and Class is now in its third incarnation. A short pamphlet of the same title was originally published in 1974, and an anthology spanning a staggering seven decades of activism was published in 2012. Our Time is...
A picket line in Sheffield on day 14 of the Stuart Delivery Workers strike. Photo: Alex Marshall Stuart Delivery couriers are now into their third week of strike action, in what has become the longest continuous strike in UK gig economy history. Action that begun in...
Image: Nick Fewings on Unsplash It is hard to live in Britain and not notice the heavy presence of nostalgia at every turn. Everything was better before. Nothing is as good nowadays. But, you know, keep calm and carry on. Or don’t, and turn your blustering anger on...
At the Left Book Club, we pride ourselves on reading from across the best in left-wing, radical and independent publishers. It’s been an exciting year for books that present new ideas and new connections, so putting together this selection was no easy task. We’ve...
Illustration by India Joseph, Moon and Moth Studio Since 2003, those of us involved in the movement for sex workers’ rights have commemorated 17 December as the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. It is a day of mourning, when we remember the...
Home Secretary Priti Patel (photo: Richard Townshend) In the autonomous regions of North East Syria, the al Hol and Roj detention camps house more than 70,000 people, mostly Syrian and Iraqi nationals, residents of areas previously under ISIL control. Almost half of...