Category: Blog post
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Return to a Cancelled Future
Growing up a wannabe rockstar in the UK I had various heroes; I’m sure you can imagine what influences they had on me. From smoking Marlboro reds to skinny jeans and long black emo fringes I was easily swayed by the whole DIY-look. Self cut mullets and ripped jeans made the rock scene accessible to […]
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La historia de Jeremy Corbyn y la tragedia de partido Laborista
Para cualquiera que no siguió las elecciones de 2019 en Reino Unido, el Partido Laborista perdió las elecciones por dos razones: la mala cobertura de los medios y nuestra posición sobre el Brexit. Fue un error del partido Laboralista no apoyar la decisión de la clase trabajadora para el Brexit, lo cual fue la decisión […]
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Atocha
Spain is famous for its plazas. Often thought of as places where thin, glamorous, hot-blooded Spaniards pass the night on wicker furnished terraces with large glasses of rioja wine, tapas in shallow terracotta bowls and the light humming of flamenco guitar in the background. Yet as you arrive in Madrid via the southern gateway to […]
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Selling your labour
This old Marxist phase does change how you feel when looking for a job. It can be both empowering and demotivating in equal measure or, depending on your position, it can be lopsided. If you are in a job for a number of years and you want to change, it isn’t so easy. First you […]
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What is Literature?
Having started a degree in English, I have been forced to rethink my concept of literature. Prior to completing the recommended reading, which was the first chapter of Terry Eagleton’s literary theory book, an easy way to summarize my view on literature would have been to say that it is all forms of fiction. My […]
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Idea-ology: Neo-liberalism, where it started (part 3)
Over the past 40 years, neoliberalism has demolished trade unions and stripped away financial restrictions which has led to more wealth for people with money and a stagnation in wages for the rest of us. President Reagan imposed this in the USA and Thatcher did so in the UK. In later years, neoliberalism repurposed the […]
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Idea-ology: Doctrine for the Masses (Part 2)
Neo-liberals believe that the free market is the best way to organise society. They claim that the government should be just an administrator, not a supervisor or a player in the market, even to the point that private companies should provide services such as hospitals, schools and prisons. This is a common misconception, or a […]
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Leyendas de Leganés: Don Juan de Austria, el Jon Snow de Leganés
¿Quién fue Don Juan de Austria? En Leganés hay comunidades, colegios, y una calle que se llama Juan de Austria. Y como Jon Snow de Juegos de Tronos, Juan fue un bastado del Rey y un luchador. Un héroe Cerca de 1545, el Rey Carlos I de España, también Santo Emperador Romano desde Alemania hasta […]
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Que es una ‘Centrist Dad’?
Hay un concepto en el mundo político anglo saxon que es un ‘centrist dad’ (padre centristas). Quiero introducir esto concepto a España porque es una idea fundamental por Twitter, memes y por una broma durante la cena de navidad cuando tu tío hablar sobre ‘que es posible’ en esto mundo. Un padre centralista normalmente es […]
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Leyendas de Leganés: Avenida Salvador Allende
En Leganés, hay una calle se llama Salvador Allende después del primer presidente marxista en Chile y América Latina. Allende fue elegido en eleciones democráticas en 1970. Allende quiso mejorar las condiciones para la clase obrera en su país. Mejorar la educación, el sistema de salud y nacionalizar las industrias más grandes en Chile. Pero […]
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Nigel Farage is a bigger threat to the left than the Tories. Here’s why.
Nigel Farage is a bigger threat to the left than the Tories. Here’s why.
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Keir Starmer: Labour Aristocracy
Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer: “I don’t think there is a case for re-joining the EU…that is not realistic” Originally tweeted by BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) on January 10, 2021. On Sunday 10th January, Keir Starmer turned his back on a large group of people that voted for him in the leadership elections. Remain-backing Labour members […]
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Shove your ‘Hot Take’
Is anybody else tired? I certainly am. Following the threat to democracy, the ‘coup’, the backlash of populism (and any other over inflated name you want to give it) in the United States on Wednesday, all I have seen online so far are personal hot takes. These have mainly been poor interpretations of what was […]
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Cultural Marxism, Covid-19 and a Broken Ideology
On the 17th December, Liz Truss, the Secretary of State for International Trade, who is also minister for Women and Equality, gave a speech announcing the government’s new approach toward equality. As part of this announcement, the Secretary claimed that recent governments had concentrated on ‘empty gestures’ such as anti-racism and gender equality whilst ignoring […]
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Worth a Read: Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
Worth a Read: Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism By Kirsten Ghodsee Bodley Head Publications If you think this is a story with steamy descriptions of Soviet spies turning capitalist men in the USA to spy for the Russian regime, or the story of woman’s liberation from the clutches of the Iron Curtain, it […]
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Systemic Societal Change, Not Self-Care, Will Fix Our Nation’s Mental Health Crisis
Ending austerity, individualistic thinking and unstable employment must be the first steps to addressing the ever-growing epidemic of mental health.
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For the Many: Preparing Labour For Power – Book Review
For the Many, Preparing Labour For Power. Edited by Mike Phipps. Various contributors. OR Books 2017, Kindle February 2018 This book is an extension of the well received 2017 election manifesto, For The Many Not The Few. This book expands and leads the way for discussion about how a future Labour government could function. For […]
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Coronavirus: A Test For Europe
The European Union will not survive coronavirus unless it evolves. To do that it must break its own rules
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Book Review: The Socialist Manifesto
By Bhaskar Sunkara Published by Verso, May 2019 As a keen reader of US based Jacobin magazine and its cousin across the pond, the recently relaunched Tribute magazine, I looked forward to reading a socialist manifesto by their chief Bhaskar Sunkara. It wasn’t what I was expecting, worth buying nonetheless. Not many people in America write about […]
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Book Review: Fully Automated Luxury Communism
By Aaron Bastani Published by Verso, 2019 The truth is I had been waiting for this book for a long time, as an avid viewer of Novara media this made me, not only intrigued but also sceptical about this book. As anyone that follows Novara media may well know, the pundits are a bit of […]
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How Communists Helped Establish Democracy in Spain
At 10:30 pm on the 24th January 1977 eight lawyers were working late at the offices of Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), one of Spain’s trade unions which was set up by the Spanish Communist Party (PCE). At the time, Spain was in the middle of a temperamental transition from Franco’s dictatorship to democracy. Many people were tense due to the […]
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The History of Spain and Covid-19: Rinse and Repeat
If not having a functioning government in 2019 wasn’t enough drama for the Spanish population, then the introduction of Covid-19 would make up for it. Spanish society has revolved around political crisis since the turn of the 20th century. Being a late bloomer when it comes to industrialisation and the growing of a middle class, Spain […]
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Lockdown diaries: Alan, writer & former psychiatric nurse (UK) — Naked Madrid
Originally published at http://www.nakedmadrid.com on March 25, 2020. It’s ok to be stressed, and it’s normal to be losing it. Most of us are. But we are doing it together. “It’s ok to be stressed, and it’s normal to be losing it. Most of us are. But we are doing it together,” says Alan, who used to be […]
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Another post-election dissection of the Labour Party
It is going to take us all to rebuild the Labour Party. A party that is part of all communities. A Labour Party that can beat Boris Johnson.
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Fuck Brexit. Save the NHS
Vote to save the NHS. Fuck Brexit. Brexit is a fantasy. It is not real, not yet. Our NHS however it is real and dying.
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Hands off our NHS
If you think the Brexit debate is divided now wait until the NHS is sold off. Not only will we have a divided society, but we will also have a dying one.
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Vote for hope. Vote for Change
All the election manifestos are now out, and it’s clear the Liberal Democrats, along with the Conservatives, want to maintain the course of our current economic model: neoliberalism. This economic model has resulted in income disparity unseen since the 1920’s. The difference between the poorest and the richest earners has grown exponentially. Since 2010 it […]
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Leave or Remain, a Labour government is what we need
With Boris Johnson taking the country to the brink of a no deal brexit, all eyes will be on anyone trying to stop it. They will be painted as the undemocratic “doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters” of the UK. Johnson hopes to frame the next election around brexit and paint himself, similar to Trump, as […]
Alan McGuire 