In Praise of Political Correctness
- May 01, 2019
- by
- Matt
There was a time, in the Thatcher years, when the concept of ‘political correctness’ was used to de-legitimize the left and/or bring feminism and particularly antiracism into ridicule and disrepute.
Bliss was it to be alive in those days, when the British yellow press regaled the nation with mostly invented stories about what ‘loony left’ councils...
We the People
- April 26, 2019
- by
- Matt
There was a time when references to ‘the people’ or the ‘will of the people’ were a rarity in British politics, unless you went on leftist solidarity demos in solidarity with Nicaragua or El Salvador and knew enough Spanish to join in the stirring chant ‘El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido’ (the people, united, will...
We Need to Talk About Spiked
- April 23, 2019
- by
- Matt
There was a time when I thought of Brendan O’Neill and the Spiked Online crowd as a freakish but curious anomaly in the British media.
Occasionally I wondered how a former leftist sect once known for publishing apologetics for war crimes was able to reinvent itself as a pseudo-contrarian thinktank peddling rightwing strawman arguments in order...
The Tony Blair Guide to Fighting Fascism
- April 22, 2019
- by
- Matt
There is no doubt that the resurgence of far-right populist politics across the world poses a direct threat to the rights and safety of migrants and minorities, to the future of democratic coexistence, and to the future of the nation-state as a multicultural and multiethnic space.
Now no less an intellectual authority than Tony Blair has...
Breaking the Irish Peace
- April 19, 2019
- by
- Matt
Back in the early seventies there used to be a political postcard that depicted Northern Ireland trying to speak to an England that had a cork firmly in one ear. Ulster – and indeed the whole of the island of Ireland – has often had difficulty in making itself heard in England. Time and again...
The Gangster-in-Chief versus Ilhan Omar
- April 13, 2019
- by
- Matt
I have to admit I was wrong about Donald Trump. Before he was elected I recognised that he was a danger to his country and to the world, and that he also posed a direct threat to migrants and minorities in the United States. It was clear even during his campaign that Trump was a...
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