Don’t Believe the Bigots – Trans Rights Aren’t a Threat to Women
by Ash Sarkar
The overrepresentation of trans-hostile voices in the media means we’re denied a realistic view of the issues facing trans and non-binary people, writes Ash Sarkar.
What’s the Point of GB News?
by Aaron Bastani
GB News has arrived – and with it, Britain has entered a new political moment. One in which truth and fact are replaced by opinion and partisan spin, the boundary between news and parody disintegrates, phone-in shows elevate feeling and opinion above all else, and informed debate becomes a thing of the past.
Ignore the Naysayers: Anti-Imperialism Will Be Central to the Socialism of the 2020s
by David Wearing
Some of the left are nervous about the perceived unpopularity of anti-imperialism undermining efforts to bring about socialism in the UK. They shouldn’t be, writes David Wearing: transnational solidarity isn’t just important, but increasingly common sense.
Grimes is Right About Communism and AI – Kind Of
by Aaron Bastani
Grimes took to TikTok last week with a 'proposition for the communists': drop enforced farming, adopt AI. While she's right to claim technology could recast our world for the better, she's wrong to think it can do so on its own.
Students’ Unions Are Demanding a Covid-19 Discount. They Should Be Demanding Much More
by Sarah Cundy
By complaining to the manager, SUs are buying into the logic of marketisation and stifling more radical students' demands, argues Manchester University student Sarah Cundy.
It Isn’t Mental Health ‘Wokeness’ That’s Getting to Piers Morgan – It’s Fear of His Own Irrelevance
by Ash Sarkar
Naomi Osaka dropping out of the French Open has infuriated establishment journalists. But what they’re really raging against is the fact that people don’t care what they think anymore, writes Ash Sarkar.
Cummings’ Inquiry Hearing Was a Chance for Centrists To Do What They Do Best: Rehabilitate Rightwingers
by Jamie Medwell
The man who just a few months ago was public enemy number one is now a harmless whistleblower. It's a frightening sign of how willing the centrist media is to let the right off the hook, writes Jamie Medwell.
Attacks on the Arts Are Part of the Tories’ Culture War
by Chardine Taylor-Stone
Earlier this month the government announced plans to cut funding for arts subjects at universities by 50%. Why? Because attacks on the arts play into the Tories’ confected culture war between salt-of-the-earth folk with ‘proper’ jobs and the ‘metropolitan elite’, argues Chardine Taylor-Stone.
Four Antisemites Won’t Stop Me Supporting Palestine
by Rivkah Brown
Our struggle against Israeli apartheid cannot be derailed by the men who drove down Finchley Road on Sunday threatening Jewish people, writes Rivkah Brown.
Post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’ is Becoming a Threat to International Security
by David Wearing
The government’s recent Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy has spelled out the agenda for British foreign relations in the 2020s and beyond. It’s going to make us and the rest of the world a lot less safe, writes David Wearing.
Keir Starmer Is Now the Worst Person, at the Worst Moment, to Lead the Labour Party
by Aaron Bastani
Starmer has no vision, no theory of change and no understanding of the present political moment. No wonder his approval ratings are plummeting, despite an easy ride from the media and a Tory party that has presided over the highest Covid-19 death toll in Europe.
Everybody is Doing Identity Politics, Even If They Think They’re Not
by Ash Sarkar
Labour didn't suffer an embarrassing local election defeat because it's 'too woke' for the working class. It lost because it has no idea who the working class actually is in 2021, writes Ash Sarkar.
It’s Win or Die for Scottish Labour. So Why Is the Party Fighting to Lose?
by Finn Smyth & Coll McCail
Today Scotland elects a new parliament. Thanks to years of self-sabotage, Labour may lose this historic heartland once and for all.
Johnson’s Government is Rotten to the Core – But Does It Even Matter?
by Samuel Earle
From his “let the bodies pile high” remarks to refurb-gate, Boris Johnson is once again mired in scandal. But rather than being any mortal wound to his prime ministership, the controversies speak to a much bigger problem at the heart of British politics: what counts as corruption, and how little it seems to matter, writes Samuel Earle.
BuzzFeed News Wanted to Be Radical – Instead It Was Mainstream Media With Listicles
by Justin Schlosberg
BuzzFeed’s experiment with serious journalism appears to be over, with the company shuttering much of its own and the recently acquired Huffington Post's news operations. This has less to do with ‘market forces’ than the company’s failure to be subversive, writes media academic Justin Schlosberg.
Labour Wants to Win Back the Working Class. The Problem Is It Has No Idea Who They Are
by Joe Bilsborough
Thatcher keenly understood that creating homeowners would create Conservative voters. Labour desperately needs its own understanding of class formation, or it will never regain the working-class votes it lost.
No, Covid-19 Isn’t a Chance to ‘End HIV’
by Ben Weil
Sexual health campaigners have welcomed lockdown as an opportunity for more abstinence and less HIV transmission. This kind of thinking didn’t get us anywhere in the 1980s, and it won’t now.
Derek Chauvin’s Conviction Won’t Make Black Lives Matter
by Annie Olaloku-Teriba
How comforting it would be were the problem simply police and not policing, writes race scholar Annie Olaloku-Teriba.