19 August 2020

75 years since the publication of Animal Farm: From 'two legs bad' to 'two legs better'

What does Orwell's fable actually say about revolution?

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20 May 2020

The Jungle: capitalism's remorseless attack on workers' safety and conditions

Fiction review: The parallels between Upton Sinclair's description of 1906 meat packaging factories and workplaces under coronavirus are frightening

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30 October 2019

Film reviews: Sorry We Missed You by Ken Loach

"A stark reminder of the inhumane lengths bosses will go to under capitalism to increase their profits": "Let's get one thing straight, you don't work for us, you work with us". Those words from the boss's mouth in the opening scene of Sorry We Missed You get turned into a sick joke over the course of the film

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5 June 2019

70 years since the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four: "But if there was hope, it lay in the proles"

George Orwell's last and most famous novel is still the go-to source, 70 years on, for anti-authoritarian imagery. But the socialist author's 1949 dystopian masterpiece is also widely misrepresented.

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6 March 2019

Women workers' militancy during the 'great unrest'

Townsend Productions' new folk ballad "Rouse Ye Women" follows events in the 1910 chainmakers' ten-week strike in Cradley Heath, the Black Country.

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13 February 2019

Liverpool: 200 march to commemorate Robert Tressell

The event remembered the celebrated author of 'The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists'

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28 November 2018

Wonderful socialist play finds Edwardian poverty not in past

Theatre: The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists: On a cold November evening, myself and other Newcastle Socialist Party members went along to see The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists. To say it was wonderful is an understatement

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17 May 2017

Barcelona May Days 1937 - a civil war within a civil war

This month marks the 80th anniversary of the 'May Days' in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. Below is a reply to an article in the Observer on 7 May (both this and a shorter version were unpublished) by Socialist Party general secretary Peter Taaffe.

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12 April 2017

Newham socialists attend 'I, Daniel Blake' film night

Newham Community Cinema held a showing of Ken Loach's film 'I, Daniel Blake' on 8 April. On behalf of East London Socialist Party branch I was asked to introduce the film.

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7 December 2016

Food banks and the real Daniel Blakes

Hundreds of thousands of people are surviving and feeding themselves by using foodbanks in Britain today

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7 December 2016

Obituary: John Sharpe: 1953-2016

John died of heart disease very suddenly, at a too early age.

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9 November 2016

Socialist inbox

Letters to the Socialist's editors including Suez strife, Blake benefits and tax trouble.

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2 November 2016

We are all Daniel Blake: no more deaths from benefit cuts

Thousands of people have died since the implementation of 'work capability assessments'. This is what the new Ken Loach film 'I, Daniel Blake' is all about. Enough is enough with this inhumane system!

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26 October 2016

"We are all Daniel Blake!"

The new Ken Loach film "I, Daniel Blake" premiered at a cinema at Leicester Square, London, on 18 October. The film is about the hard life the main character, Daniel Blake, faces when he needs to access the benefit system after his health deteriorates.

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19 October 2016

The radical life of Paul Robeson

Fighting racism and capitalism with solidarity, socialism and song: An actor who starred on Broadway, a talented college American football player, a brilliant singer - and a socialist and civil rights campaigner at a time when Malcom X and Martin Luther King were just children.

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31 August 2016

Ken Loach and a Socialist seller join Sisters Uncut protest

The Spirit of '45, a film by renowned filmmaker Ken Loach was shown recently at a small local theatre in North Newcastle-upon-tyne.

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6 July 2016

Why I joined: My real education started when I joined

Only the Militant could explain to me why the Soviet Union had degenerated from its ideals of 1917. It had a programme to fight poverty around the world. Under the leadership of Militant supporters, the LPYS brought out a 'Charter for Young Workers' - a brilliant tool to fight for proper apprenticeships and better wages. I became a Militant supporter and a member of the Socialist Party when it was formed.

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25 May 2016

What we saw: 'I, Daniel Blake' and Hunt/'Thick of It' remix

Anti-cuts drama 'I, Daniel Blake' has won top gong at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. Meanwhile, another filmmaker has mashed up a Jeremy Hunt interview with political satire 'The Tick of It'.

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2 December 2015

A socialist Christmas gift guide

What does a Socialist Party member buy their loved ones at Christmas? Certainly not rolling in money; unlikely to have loads of time to go shopping...

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18 November 2015

Robert Tressell's characters are all too real to me

Comment - The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists: I have only been a member for a year, and have recently read Robert Tressell's classic socialist novel. I was recommended the title as I am also a decorator like the characters in the book.

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