This essay was first published in the Autumn 2021 issue of Red Pepper Why did I leave the Labour Party after 40 years and move beyond my federalist, German-style vision of regional autonomy to become a member of the Northern Independence Party, whose vision is an...
The Witches Sabbath by David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690) Horror has always been with us. As a genre it serves a particular human need to provide us with a vicarious and safe thrill, but as a cultural artefact it introduces us to ideas that help to secure social...
Dawn Ray’d playing live (Credit: Thomas Brooker) If horror is marked by a fascination with the dangerous and the macabre, then few forms of music embody that spirit like black metal – a controversial subgenre of heavy metal characterised by a raw, uncompromising...
Sadako Yamamura from Ringu (1998) (Credit: Toho) Though increasingly marketable since the turn of the millennium, ‘Asian horror’ is neither a homogeneous category nor a regionally inclusive label. The term ‘Asian horror cinema’ has been largely used to refer to scary...
(A Covid mutual aid group in London. Credit: Youth Deliver.) As Covid-19 hit the UK and we entered the apocalyptic scene- scape of bare supermarket shelves and boarded-up pubs, it was hard not to recognise that our economic system for organising society had failed....
Photo: Liverpool Against the Arms Fair A national protest against an upcoming arms fair took place in Liverpool on 11 September with over 3,000 people in attendance. Jeremy Corbyn and Maxine Peake were among those who showed support. In his speech to the gathered...
Singaporean elections are a curious beast to describe to outsiders. On the surface, everything looks above board. There aren’t any accusations of cheating or corruption, and politicians (especially opposition ones) take care to assure citizens that their votes are...
Image credit: Alexander Constantin Social care is not working. It is a system that is under-funded, difficult to access, and where the only winners are profit-making private care providers. Workers are abandoning the sector in unprecedented numbers while those...
Solidarity mural in Riace, 2018 This week Domenico ‘Mimmo’ Lucano, former mayor of Riace, has been given an extremely harsh 13-year prison sentence, following allegations of aiding illegal immigration. Mr Lucano, who denies the accusation, maintains that everything...
Protests in Mumbai against the National Register of Citizens and Citizenship Amendment Act (credit: Vishal Yashoda) In India, as in other parts of the world, voter suppression has always targeted oppressed communities and minorities. Independent India’s constitution...
A Black Lives Matter march in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2015. Photo: Fibonacci Blue (licensed under Creative Commons by 2.0) ‘People are at their most revealing in liminal spaces,’ Claudia Rankine tells journalist Gary Younge while discussing her new book Just Us: An...
Māori protesters on Waitangi Day, 6th February 2006 (Credit: Charlie Brewer) The ‘doctrine of discovery’, also known as the doctrine of Christian discovery, is an international legal concept and Christian principle borne out of Catholic laws (called papal bulls) that...