By Eamon Dyas Over the past year there have been several exhibitions and events in the UK commemorating the 40th anniversary of the British miners’ strike including “One Year! Photographs from the Miners’ Strike 1984-85: An exhibition based on the Martin Parr Foundation’s collection” which has toured various UK venues. Martin Parr has been an … Continue reading The significance of the 1984-85 Miners’s strike
Thatcher
Notes on the News
By Gwydion M. Williams Immigration – Giving Away the Lives of Others Feed-The-Rich Privatisation Hungary – the Wounds of 1956 Snippets Structureless Protests are Fun, but Failures USA Resenting Indian Success Hindu Home-Grown Racism Poland Replacing Coal With Nuclear. Sunlight for Power and Food Robots – Dangers and Hopes Still Fighting to the Last Ukrainian … Continue reading Notes on the News
Liberalism, Neoliberalism and the Trade Union Movement
Martin Seale The liberalism of the late 19th century was characterized by the view that the role of the state should be limited. The state would protect the nation from external enemies, enforce the rule of law (much around property) and provide some limited form of education. British capitalism seemed to function reasonably well up to the 2nd half … Continue reading Liberalism, Neoliberalism and the Trade Union Movement
Defenders of the Rich
Gwydion M. Williams Britain and the USA increasingly move in tandem. Thatcher began the process of copying everything the USA had got wrong. This now includes a health service that runs for private profit. In the USA, it costs twice as much per head, but may be denied to the critically sick or injured. Withheld from those … Continue reading Defenders of the Rich
The father and mother school of economics
By Eamon Dyas In 1992, a year before she died, the American academic and mother of Oliver Letwin, Shirley Robin Letwin, published a book entitled “The Anatomy of Thatcherism”. In this she explored the nature of what has come to be known as Thatcherism. It is an interesting book with several insights into the concept … Continue reading The father and mother school of economics
An Open Letter to Jeremy Corbyn
Gwydion M. Williams (The photo shows Islington Town Hall) I began this letter to urge you to stand in your current seat. I’ve now updated it to give reasons why you were right. On the issue of left-wingers standing against top-down-chosen Labour candidates: there is no danger of letting in a Tory or Liberal Democrat in … Continue reading An Open Letter to Jeremy Corbyn
Notes on the News
By Gwydion M. Williams From Russia, With Scorn Shallow Democracy China’s Successful Leninism Snippets You know nothing, Bill Gates Replacement Americans Sad With Libertarian Freedoms Swiss Remain Human From Russia, With Scorn (Written before the terrorist attack of 22 March.) Making an enemy of post-Soviet Russia was a massive error by the New Right. Proof … Continue reading Notes on the News
Apprenticeships—by a Former Apprentice
John Clayden Government Training Centres were I think set up during the war or just after and were nationwide and were set up with trade union cooperation but were later destroyed by Thatcher. The one in Perivale West London I attended covered the various building trades and engineering trades, sheet metal work as well … Continue reading Apprenticeships—by a Former Apprentice
The Mixed Economy and Dogmatic Individualism
Ordinary Britons have been victims of a fraud that began in the 1980s. Started before many of today’s voters were even born. Thanks to tight control of the popular media by the very rich, a reversion to 19th century capitalism was sold as the only option. Liberal critics speak vaguely of a Western failure after the … Continue reading The Mixed Economy and Dogmatic Individualism
Notes on the News
Notes on the News By Gwydion M. Williams Sick Britain The Global South Stands Solid China In Chaos? Climate Change Inferiority for China and India? War Until the West Runs Out of Gullible Ukrainians? Snippets A Very English Ruthlessness India On The Moon Israel – Losing Westernisation Sick Britain From the 1980s, Britons were tricked … Continue reading Notes on the News
Party Politics and State Power—Editorial
In last month’s issue Labour Affairs argued that the British two-party system of representative parliamentary democracy was largely a theatre, giving the impression of serious political rivalry about substantial policies but artfully concealing underlying agreements between the parties on nearly all the important issues. Conventional party politics is an illusion of real choice. Phoney antagonisms are worked … Continue reading Party Politics and State Power—Editorial
Trade Union Diary
Industrial Democracy A new book has just been published: "Our trade unions, what comes next after the summer of 2022?" By Nigel Flanagan, Manifesto Press. The book is vigorously written and addresses the question of the immense weakness of the trade union movement today without flinching. It rightly addresses the question of how it came about as … Continue reading Trade Union Diary
Animal Spirits, Taxing and Borrowing — Editorial
Kwasi Kwarteng is clearly a believer in animal spirits, or more specifically, the animal spirits of the UK private sector. The term ‘animal spirits’ was used by the economist J. M. Keynes to describe the spontaneous forces of vitality that drive human action. Apparently these animal spirits have been held back by too much taxing and … Continue reading Animal Spirits, Taxing and Borrowing — Editorial
The Anarchy of Production
By Gwydion M. Williams Most of the Cold War was fought by the West in defence of the Mixed Economy. Many of its defenders would have denied that the Mixed Economy was even capitalism. Rather more agreed it was capitalism, but an improved Mixed Economy Capitalism. Something that worked much better than the capitalism that caused … Continue reading The Anarchy of Production
Newsnotes
Notes on the News By Gwydion M. Williams Did Russia Invade To Stop Kiev Overrunning the Donbass?The G7’s Proxy WarGeorgia Not Fighting to the Last GeorgianBritish Rail and the Imaginary MarketThe End of Thatcherism?China’s Mixed Economy Did Russia Invade To Stop Kiev Overrunning the Donbass? Western media speak of ‘Russian Disinformation’. But not this particular Russian claim. Which … Continue reading Newsnotes
Let’s Avoid a 1970s Rerun
The TUC have called for a large demonstration in London on June 18th in the face of the cost of living crisis. “Working people have had enough. Everything’s going up but our wages. Join the trade union movement in London to tell this government: we DEMAND better!” reads the TUC blurb. They are right and a massive … Continue reading Let’s Avoid a 1970s Rerun
The Destruction of Local Authorities as Housing Providers
LABOUR AND HOUSING – Part 7. The destruction of local authorities as housing providers. By Eamon Dyas Determining the economic discourse. The previous article in this series showed how building societies and banks were incapable of supplying mortgages on the scale required by the Tory Government’s 1979 Right to Buy scheme. It explained how local councils … Continue reading The Destruction of Local Authorities as Housing Providers
Notes on the News
Notes on the News By Gwydion M. Williams Disgusted With Capitalism, Terrified of Socialism Burning Bridges With China Ukraine – Arming the Useful Idiots “Let The World Suffer, Unless India and China Stay Low” Pay Less, Care Less Snippets A False Meritocracy Life, Liberty and the Avoidance of Happiness Communist Subversion in the 1950s Chinese … Continue reading Notes on the News
Labour Affairs 