Author: robert.marchant

Ah, the panic. You can see it setting in as there is a blip downwards in the polls. Two consecutive polls show Labour and the Tories neck and neck, and we have a letter to the Guardian. As Uncut’s Atul Hatwal noted last week, there are now rumblings on the Labour right. But while it… Continue reading Why the surprise? Labour’s poll slippage was predicted and is on trend

You may have heard the news that Adolfo Suárez, first post-Franco prime minister of Spain, died on Sunday. You may not have even noticed; it wasn’t big news in the outside world.But for those, like my wife and her family, who have not had the privilege of living all their lives in a fluffy democracy,… Continue reading Adiós, Adolfo Suárez: the story of a man who had the courage to change

‘Russia Today’ YouTube account has been suspended for ‘multiple violations of policy on misleading content’. #ukraine pic.twitter.com/b5FyODy2KI— Paul Brennan (@paulrbrennan) March 18, 2014 You can see here (thanks to @paulrbrennan) that last week YouTube realised that the dreadful RT.com (Russia Today) – global mouthpiece for the Putin regime – was  publishing propaganda that was, essentially, a… Continue reading Viva YouTube: you have done what the United Nations could not

How “neoliberalism” seen by the left: an example Today Britain’s political focus turns, as it always does sooner or later, to the economy. It is the last Budget which will come in time to make much of a difference for the election, an election for which all parties now start to gradually gather together their… Continue reading Labour must change the language it uses to talk about business and economics

Last Thursday I took the metro to Belorusskaya, to get the Sheremetyevo airport train out of Moscow. Perhaps not for the last time in my life but probably the last for a while, at least. During the last six months I have met, befriended and drunk too much vodka with some warm, sensible and decent… Continue reading Letter from Moscow (ii): goodbye, Crimea

My good colleague Alan Johnson (@shachtman) went to speak in a debate about Israel in Galway and this is what happened:I’m afraid similar things are happening in various campuses at the moment, thanks to the BDS campaign (sanctions against Israel) and a resurgence of the far left.Now, this is not (obviously) to say that Palestinians… Continue reading The pro-Palestine mob and free speech at the University of Ireland

Regular readers of the Centre Left will be familiar with the unpleasant president of Hungary, happily chipping away at the constitution as he muzzles the press and turns a blind eye to rampant anti-Semitism. However, if you wanted the clincher as to the direction his luckless country has taken under his leadership, the first few… Continue reading Viktor Orbán, bought and sold

In a sense, nothing changed over the weekend: there was virtually no doubt that, once a proposal of such import was made “privately” to the NEC – and therefore instantly leaked to the whole world – that ducks were already in a neat row and nods had already been duly given. In dark, smoke-filled rooms,… Continue reading The boy Miliband done good

A month ago, I wrote that Vladimir Putin would most likely wait until the end of the Sochi Olympics and then act in the Ukraine, which is essentially what has now happened. After a rubber-stamping of approval by the Russian parliament, Putin has moved Russian troops into the Crimea region, where a new president has… Continue reading After Sochi (part ii)

With hundreds of thousands on the streets demonstrating against the government last weekend, ongoing economic crisis, shortages of practically everything and government thugs beating and killing opposition demonstrators, it seems odd that we even have to ask the question. But on the British left, we sometimes exhibit a pathological support for figures on the anti-establishment… Continue reading The labour movement should drop any illusions it has about Venezuelan socialism