Liam Kennedy is a researcher at the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and an editor at Red Pepper magazine.
In Britain, inequality within the top 10% is greater than it is within the bottom 90%. This has created a middle-class politics centered on a fear of downward mobility. The Left must offer its own vision of society, focused on equality rather than competition.
Nobody Loves You and You Don’t Deserve to Exist, the debut film by director Brett Gregory, offers an unsparing critique of the false promises of social mobility. It is the best film about working-class Britain in years.
Britain’s police and secret service has spied on and infiltrated left-wing political organizations since the 19th century. A new book shows that their continued influence poses a serious threat to democracy.
Despite overseeing famines in colonial India, celebrating imperial war, and sending troops to attack striking miners, Winston Churchill continues to be celebrated by the British establishment. He shouldn’t be.
Today, Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-serving monarch in British history, will celebrate 70 years as head of state. Throughout its existence, the monarchy has entrenched a culture of deference to authority. It’s incompatible with the values of a democracy.
La Poste is using the absence of any strong transnational framework guaranteeing workers’ pay and conditions to exploit England’s precarious labor market. The Left needs to fight to empower states to discipline capitalists, domestically and internationally.
Britain’s Tories promise to “level up” poorer regions to London standards. Yet they’re pursuing the same finance-centered agenda that has fueled inequality for decades: offering social mobility for a small handful while most people’s living standards fall.