Author: gwydionwilliams

Labour Affairs – December 2018 Updates

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December Editorial: Back To The EU Cap In Hand. 
Facing defeat, Theresa May pulled the plug at the eleventh hour on MPs meaningful vote on her Brexit deal..

From October 2018:  Parliamentary Notes but no Froggy this month.  Also Notes on the News: New Labour – the Timid Tendency Fades, Hurricanes – Abnormal is the New Normal, Times Are Changing, The Chinese Example, No, There Is No International Law, Sport Polluted By Money, Racism in Sweden, Snippets , Wider Anti-Semitism Acknowledged?, Dangers of Alcohol, Brexit.

Also everything for December 2017: Editorial: Faint-Hearted Phil (Tory Budget); Parliament And World War One (USA and Russia); Froggy;  Notes on the News; Letter from New Zealand; Walter Citrine in the Soviet Union in 1925. Part 1; Feed-the Rich in Haringey (new housing); Diary of a Corbyn foot soldier; Parliamentary Notes; Listening to Italy; Shoe Horn (poem).  Also available as a PDF, Labour Affairs 283 December 2017

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Labour Affairs – November 2018 Updates

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Latest update.  November Editorial: The Troublesome 5%.  Outstanding Brexit issues.

From September 2018: News from France (Froggy), Parliamentary Notes, and  Notes on the News: Britons Voting For Their Own Suffering, Shed No Tears for Bomber McCain, Trump Guilt of Sex!, Fifty Years On From Russia Crushing Czechoslovakia, A Deadly Bridge In Italy, Getting Tough With Turks, Living In Peace, Another Suffering Minority, Brains Hurt?, Wrecked Syria, Sex Abuse Wasn’t Only Catholics.

Also everything for November 2017: Editorial: Corbyn On a Roll; Parliament And World War One: ; Froggy;  Notes on the News; New Zealand ‘Populism’; Zionism as the Abolition of Jews; Diary of a Corbyn foot soldier; Parliamentary Notes; Listening to Italy; Poems: Disembodied Voices, Truth as an Illness, Mannequin as President.  Also available as a PDF, Labour Affairs 282 November 2017

Labour Affairs – October 2018 Updates

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Latest update.  October Editorial: Catching the Mood of the Nation.  Labour’s Liverpool conference was a huge success.  Jeremy Corbyn was accepted even by his critics as a credible Prime Minister.  But Brexit remains a problem.

From July 2018: News from France (Froggy), and Parliamentary Notes.  Also Notes on the News: The Mid-Atlantic Sinks Beneath the Waves; Blame It On the Boomers?; In Praise of Authoritarian State Capitalism; Rights of Humans Just Like Me; Support Israel, Hasten Armageddon; Snippets; An Impossible Diet?; Going To Pot.

Also everything for October 2017: Editorial: Brexit Divisions; Parliament And World War One: German Prisoners; Froggy;  Notes on the News; Northern Ireland: Britain’s Responsibility; Diary of a Corbyn foot soldier; Parliamentary Notes: European Union (Withdrawal) Bill; Listening to Italy; Poems: Now They’ll Go On About This For Days And Days, Of Tills And Pills, Tourist Class, Flag Of Convenience, But Not Like That, Now Why Did I Think Like That. Also available as a PDF, Labour Affairs 281 October 2017

Labour Affairs – September 2018 Updates

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Latest update.  September Editorial: Democratic Reforms.  Should the leaders of Labour council groups to be elected by the party membership? And what’s happening with direct elections for the national leader?.

From June 2018: News from France (Froggy), and Parliamentary Notes.  Also Notes on the News: USA – Land of the Freely Self-Harming, In Iceland, the State Does Its Job, Guns Before Royals, Black in the Union Jack, How Dare Anyone Know I am Related to my Relatives!, How Dare They Recognise My Face!, Thou Shalt Have No Eternal Truth, Other Than What We Invented Last Week, Global Votes, Most Flesh Is Grass.

Also everything for September 2017: Editorial: Brexit Blues; Parliament And World War One; Froggy; Notes on the News; Diary of a Corbyn foot soldier; Parliamentary Notes; Listening to Italy; Labour in Northern Ireland; Baby Boomers to Blame?; Taylor report on Industrial Practices;  Poems: Barcelona, Gaza City, Hallelujah!, Did You Pack This Bomber Yourself.  Also available as a PDF, Labour Affairs 280 September 2017

Labour Affairs – July 2018 Updates

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Latest update.  July Editorial: Funding the NHS.  And how the Tories have always hated it.

From May 2018: Parliamentary Notes and  Notes on the News: Policeless policing?, Windrush Generation – “We Don’t Take Truth for an Answer”, Is This the Facebook that Shipped A Thousand Lies?, From Technocrat to Cashocrats, China – Trade Insults, Not Goods?, Snippets, Korea, Wasteful Wars, As Honest as a Fox.

Also everything for July 2017: Editorial: They’re All Corbynites Now!; Parliament And World War One: Ireland, Greece and Enemy Propaganda; Froggy;  Notes on the News; Grenfell Tower; Diary of a Corbyn foot soldier (No 12); Parliamentary Notes; Listening to Italy; Poems: Grenfell Tower, Climbing The Money Tree, Not Another Burden. Also available as a PDF, Labour Affairs 279 – July / August 2017

Labour Affairs – June 2018 Updates

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Latest update.  June Editorial: The Resignation of Ken Livingstone.

From April 2018: News from France (Froggy), and Parliamentary Notes.
Also Notes on the News: Time On Our Side, You Don’t Need a Gay Indian-Irishman To Know Which Way the Wind Blows, Ambiguous Leftism in the Czech Republic, More Old Hatreds Revive, Jews, Seals and Antisemites, Gaddafi the Second?, Don’t worry, be Finland, Money Fit for Crooks, Remembering Stephen Hawking.

Also everything for June 2017: Editorial: Corbyn’s Comeback; Parliament And World War One; Froggy;  Notes on the News; Diary of a Corbyn foot soldier (No 11); Corbyn’s speech on Foreign Policy; David Morrison on Corbyn and Foreign Policy; Awed by Amazing Twentieth; Listening to Italy; Poems: A New Low, Taking A Rise Out Of Him, The Sacrificial.  Also available as a PDF, Labour Affairs 278 – June 2017

 

The Russian Revolution Was Necessary

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Brendan Clifford on the Russian Revolution.  Parts 1 to 3.  Parts 4 to 6.
“I had many discussions … trying to get my head around the idea that the [Russian] revolution was destined to failure by international circumstances, but that it also failed, because it was betrayed by those who assumed the leadership of it.  To my mind the idea that it was betrayed implied that it might have succeeded…

“Going through Trotsky’s later accounts of why he did not become leader in 1924, I found much of his pre-Revolution dislike of Leninism re-surfacing as criticism of Stalinism, but with the addition of distaste for the uncouth company of the workers who were increasingly encountered in Stalin’s circles.”