Protests in 1990. Photo: Wellcome Images When the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, the British left was wrong-footed. Despite many British left groups not being particularly supportive of the USSR, the process of seeing the Soviet bloc collapse between 1989 and 1991...
A protester wears a panuelo verde. Credit: Daniel Espinosa Guzman The ‘estallido social’ (social explosion) that kicked off in October 2019 was the largest outpouring of discontent witnessed in Chile since the Pinochet era. While the initial protests were sparked by a...
Have we entered an age of post-truth politics? Can anything stop the spread of conspiracy theories and fake news? Facts, statistics and official figures are becoming an increasingly fragile foundation for democratic politics around the world. But this decay is...
A train arrives in Khartoum from Atbra city in August, 2019, two days before the final signing of the Draft Constitutional Declaration. Photo by Osama Elfaki The second wave of revolts in the Middle East and North Africa (the ‘MENA’ region) began in Sudan, in December...
(Image: William McCue) At the start of this year, the UK government released a report advising local authorities to ‘bring forward democracy’. Citizen involvement comes too late in the planning process, it said, and there is ‘unacceptable uncertainty’ built into it,...
Image: Uta Scholl Tracksuits, Traumas and Class Traitors is a book that does not lend itself to easy categorisation. It is at once a brutal depiction of working-class struggle and strength, a guide to breaking capitalism’s furtive grip on our lives, and a wake-up call...
Bank Job directors Hilary Powell and Daniel Edelstyn The mission: buy and write off £1m of household debt. The plan: follow in the footsteps of debt cancellation pioneers and galvanise the local community by harnessing the power of art, place and activism. This is...
Undod banner at Indy rally in Caernarfon 2019 (credit: Robat Idris) Undod (Welsh for ‘Unity’) is a group of people from all over Wales campaigning for a radical form of independence. We believe that an independent Wales will not be worth having if it is merely a...
On 16 January 2021, Robert Jenrick, MP – Boris Johnson’s Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government – published a now-infamous opinion piece in The Telegraph, denouncing a recent decision by Birmingham City Council to give aspirational names –...
I work in Parliament where, like other public sector workers, I am bound by a contract of “political impartiality”. This applies not only to our work, but we’re also prohibited from participating in certain civic activities like signing petitions, engaging actively in...
Extinction Rebellion protestors in London. Credit: Stefan Müller ‘Knowledge is power,’ says the scheming courtier Littlefinger to Queen Cersei Lannister in an iconic Game of Thrones scene. Unimpressed by a thinly-veiled threat to reveal her secret, Cersei orders her...
City of London at night. Credit: Colin The UK has finally left the EU. Out of the single market and the customs union, the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) reached on the 23rd December 2020 now forms the basis of the new UK-EU relationship. For many, we have...