Ten reasons to vote for G4S as the World's Worst Company
The infamous Public Eye award wants your vote on the company that most deserves naming and shaming. Activists from South Yorkshire to the Canton of Vaud are backing security company G4S to win. Here's...
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Russian consumerism: market boom chaos
The collapse of the USSR replaced the perennial shortages of goods and services with the problem of low incomes and rising prices. Today management is grossly inefficient, but rampant corruption blocks...
View ArticleSyria: the futility of diplomacy
It seems that UN envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi is still convinced of the effectiveness of soft diplomacy and of rhetoric, in coming up with compromises to put a halt to continuing Syrian homicide.It seems...
View ArticleCycling through Reading or Kazakhstan: otherness is not what it seems
Rape in India, protest in China, manufacturing conferences in Manchester - we find it hard not to think in the categories of "first" and "third" worlds. But look elsewhere for the important differences...
View ArticleRoma inclusion in 2012: no respite in prejudice
Does the EU deserve its Nobel Peace Prize? 2013 is the European Year of Citizens, dedicated to the rights that come with EU citizenship. It seems utterly remote and removed from the reality facing...
View ArticleYes to ending violence against women, but no to the ‘zero tolerance’ route
The problem with the use of 'zero tolerance' in public discourse is that it makes for good populist politics and rhetoric which generally translates into regressive and ill-informed public policy,...
View ArticleThe Value of Culture (a reluctant tribute to the BBC's Radio 4)
As a cultural studies scholar, Jeremy Gilbert was sharpening his daggers for Melvyn Bragg well before his BBC programme on ‘culture’ aired. Here is why, and how, it unexpectedly lived up to a momentous...
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Russia’s pension impasse – is there a way out?
One way Vladimir Putin has retained his popularity among Russians has been by increasing retirement pensions and other social benefits, and as a result the state pension fund is deep in the red. But as...
View ArticleBeyond ambivalence: a vision of Europe
The British Prime Minister has vowed to negotiate a ‘new settlement’ on Britain and the EU. In a debate on Europe with Sir Menzies Campbell, Nigel Farage and Peter Oborne, organised by the Cantor...
View ArticleJean-Luc Mélenchon interview, 7 December 2012
In London to speak on a progressive alternative to the austerity policies which are being implemented across Europe (at the European Institute of UCL, to be published shortly), France’s Left Front...
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Resources: the coming crunch and some things that could be done about it
In the twentieth century the west’s boundless determination to extract ripped apart the social, political and cultural fabric of whole countries. Today, a century’s worth of price decline has been...
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An investment wonderland? Reality checks
Since the collapse of the USSR investors have flocked to Russia, tempted by the high rates of return and the Alice in Wonderland atmosphere in Moscow, where everything seems possible. But the Russian...
View ArticleThe mosque and the palace
The Arab monarchies must not be undermined by the Islamist movements, but rather should come to some sort of working arrangement with them. The Arab Spring for want of a better term continues to...
View ArticleMali, dynamic of war
The French-led military intervention in Mali both accelerates the war in the west African country and transforms its character. The prospect is of a long-term engagement that Islamist forces far beyond...
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A warning and an invitation, to Europeans
On December 6, 2012, the Leader of France’s Left Front addressed a packed audience in the European Institute of University College, London on a progressive alternative to the human crises caused by...
View ArticleColluders in sexual violence: don't let them off the hook
Jimmy Savile, Cyril Smith, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, recent events within the Socialist Workers Party: all four cases show how socially powerful figures can benefit from a 'culture of collusion'...
View ArticleWelfare debate marks opportunity to renew Beveridge’s legacy
Why has Britain's welfare state lost the popularity it once enjoyed? How can it regain this role and where does Labour fit in?It wasn’t always like this. Social security was once a strategic political...
View ArticleFalling through the cracks in Britain 2013
Strivers vs skivers. Last week saw a game show-like battle between our politicians over the proposed benefit cap. What do they know? Here, a Citizen's Advice Bureau adviser maps the predicament of...
View ArticleThe welfare state is dead – what is rising from the grave?
The old welfare state cannot survive the global financial crisis. Beneath the Punch and Judy debate, what is the Coalition putting in its place? And what is the alternative?“Friends”, said Iain Duncan...
View ArticleUS shores up waning influence in Iraq by bolstering Kurdish superiority
Iraq, on the first anniversary of US withdrawal, is struggling to cope, not merely with a raging sectarian crisis between the Shia-led Central Government (CG) and an increasingly resentful...
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