Rudyard Kipling was an imperialist and a patriot – he certainly loved his country, indeed he loved it to death, shamelessly using his connections to arrange a commission in the Irish Guards for his hopelessly short-sighted son John, only for the boy to be killed on his first day in action at the battle of […]
In his book Private Island (Verso 2015), James Meek dissects the impact of privatisation sector by sector. Some 40 years down the line, the result of this privatisation is that the vast majority of us, either as users of these services or as those employed to deliver them, are now worse off. Collectively we have […]
Book ReviewThe UN Sanctions Regime in IraqH. C. von SponeckBerghahn Books, November 2006 In this book Hans-Christof von Sponeck, a German diplomat who had been with the UN for 30 years, details the devastating impact of sanctions on the people of Iraq, and the determination of the US and UK governments led by Bill Clinton […]
Noam Chomsky’s name was familiar to me back in the 70’s while I was studying Computer Science (techniques he pioneered in linguistics were used to define the syntax of programming languages). Fifty years later looking for a book for our recently formed Socialist book club, I came up with this collection of interviews given around […]
One of the abiding questions of Brexit is how the very close referendum result in June 2016 led to a very hard Brexit in 2020, a Brexit that remains far from settled to this day. This is the main theme of Professor Chris Grey’s new book Brexit Unfolded. How No One Got What They Wanted […]
In 1937 Jean Renoir directed a film called ‘La Grande Illusion’ about French prisoners-of-war during World War I. The title came from a book published in 1909 by Norman Angell called ‘The Great Illusion’ which argued that war is futile because of the common economic interests of all European nations. This is, of course, the […]
An updated and expanded version of In Limbo has recently been published by Spokesman Books. The first edition covered the fears, anxieties and feelings of betrayal – by the UK, by friends and, in some cases, by families – of EU citizens living in the UK. Does the updated version tell us of a happy […]
Ed: This review is of the first edition of “In Limbo”. It will be updated shortly based on the second edition, “In Limbo too”. One of the more sickening aspects of Brexit is the impact it has had on the lives of EU citizens, resident or working in the UK. They came to this country […]
A comparison of the post-war history of Germany and the UK is revealing. And embarrassing if you are British. Germany has gone from being a pariah state with a wrecked economy to a model of democracy with a successful economy, whereas Britain … Why is this? John Kampfner provides a compelling explanation in ‘Why the […]