June 2009

The Archives

• Being Labour

  It’s all in the name

  06.30.09 | Permalink | Comment?

  There’s so much to say about the Building Britain’s Future document, available here, that it’ll take me a while to pull it altogether. 
  In the meantime, I think this from George at the Cambridge University Labour Club blog is a pretty decent summary critique of both style and substance;  the bit about housing allocations policy as [...]

• Breaking News

  Stroppyblog must apologise now

  06.29.09 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  I’ve generally got a good deal of time for Stroppy of Stroppyblog, notwithstanding some differences of emphasis in the debate about whether there must be absolute primacy of the working class in the struggle of the Left.
  But this time she has gone to far. 
  In a post which will have Bob Piper in paroxysms, and Norman Geras in [...]

• Being Labour

  Amartya Sen as new New Labour orthodoxy?

  06.28.09 | Permalink | 10 Comments

  There are signs that Amartya Sen’s‘capabilities’ model is becoming the new orthodoxy of New Labour, now that communitarianism has been deemed past its sell by date. 
  First, there’s New Labour loyalists Richard Reeves and Philip Collins referencing the model in a Progress Magazine article:
  First, power lies with people, not institutions or groups. Conservatives on left and right prefer power [...]

• Being Labour

  Michael Jackson and the Unions

  06.28.09 | Permalink | 4 Comments

  Harry’s already noted at workers’ total victory over Total has been overshadowed by the coverage of the death of Michael Jackson.
  In years to come, it’d be nice to look back on Friday 26th June 2009, and remember that two important things happened that day:

   a singer, who broke down some of the barriers of race in modern music, died [...]

• Bickerstaffe Thoughts

  Bickebikes, Chicago & Bickerbikers, Lancashire, England

  06.27.09 | Permalink | Comment?

  While looking for something else completely different about Bickerstaffe’s own ‘Bickerbikers‘, which started last week very successfully, I came upon this very good looking project for getting children onto their bikes in an area of ‘Chicago’s near northwest side’ (according to its excellent looking Redevelopment Corporation). 
  It’s called Bickerbikes.
  ‘Carpe diem’ is my motto, at least when I’m feeling energetic, so [...]

• The world beyond West Lancashire

  Tom Harris: Doppelganger

  06.25.09 | Permalink | 1 Comment

  I acknowledge fully that I am twice as obsessed as I should be with Tom Harris MP, but now I think I have worked out why.
  It’s because there appear to be two of them.
  There’s this one, who on Tuesday evening (23 June) was having dinner with friends, making podcasts and then chatting to celebrities at the House [...]

• Being Labour, Bickerstaffe Thoughts, Breaking News

  Macro to micro

  06.25.09 | Permalink | Comment?

  I’m currently scripting for your delectation a six part essay provisionally entitled ‘The Fifth Tradition’, in which I explore the future of the Labour party and the left in the context of the urgent need to establish a post-Keynesian paradigm of economic management in the interests of the working class as a replacement to discredited neoliberal laissez faire policies.
  But [...]

• The world beyond West Lancashire

  Car crash radio at its finest

  06.23.09 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  Last night (Monday) I flicked on the radio about 10.45pm to find it was on Radio 5, with a talkshow hosted by Richard Bacon (listen from about 28 mins in). (Timing updated: thanks to Mike in comments below.)
  On it were a Labour PPC, Alex Hilton, who sounded at least vaguely sane, a Libdem of that indeterminate variety you [...]

• The world beyond West Lancashire

  The Lindsey strikes and the mainstream media: this time it’s different

  06.23.09 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  4,000 workers out on strike in successful solidarity with sacked workers at the Lindsey Oil Refinery should be big news – a sign that the tables may be turning, and that labour is beginning to show its strength again.
  I detect a distinct lack of enthusiasm from the mainstream press this time around, however.
  Back in February, [...]

• The world beyond West Lancashire

  Man gets job

  06.23.09 | Permalink | Comment?

  We’re sorry to be a little late covering this, but it appears the main news from the last couple of days is that a man has got a job in London. 
  It is understood that he got the job against competition from 9 other applicants, much lower than the average number of applicants for a job in [...]

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