Problems 29: Jews as ‘Collateral Damage’ in the Fall of the British Empire. Part One: Britain’s Exterminating Sea Empire (summary only)

Problems 25 – China: Blue Ants and Dangerous Reds – now on-line

• Writing in 1950s, a French writer has no doubt that Mao’s new China is efficient, clean and orderly.  He dislikes the loss of what he sees as the romance of Old China, while not denying the suffering.
• He also says “”China has therefore been Westernised for a second time, more completely than the first.  China is no longer Asiatic.  At most she will be Eurasian”.
• The article next studies what the same writer had said earlier.  And then a bizarre US science fiction novel that shows the ignorance and prejudice about China at the time.
• Finally it looks at the Yangtze Incident of 1949, and how it ended a century of Western intrusion into China’s rivers.

Latest Editorial:

Trusting Theresa May.  May 2017.

‘Trust Me, I’m A Vicar’s Daughter’ could be the message.  But the overwhelming support of MPs for Article 50 wasn’t enough. She wanted complete obedience from her congregation in the chamber of the House. She claimed, bizarrely, that the country was united following the referendum result, but that parliament was divided. She accused Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP of attempting to sabotage the Brexit negotiations and of threatening to oppose a final deal.

Three Months Ago:

• Froggy; Expectations for the French Election
• Parliamentary Notes; Debate on Brexit
• Newsnotes: Malignant Populists
• Broad Capitalism
• China Narrowing Its ‘Broad Capitalism’?
• Coolhearts, Immigrants and Brexit
• A War Against Islam
• Snippets
  • Aleppo – a Weird Silence
  • Elites
  • Libya Abolished
  • 2% of Climate Scientists Can’t Be Wrong

From last year, now on-line:

May 2016: Editorial: Steel – A Tale of Two Countries.  Parliament And World War One: Trade Unions and Peace Proposals.  Statement on ‘Labour’s problem with antisemitism’ from the Jewish Socialists’ Group.  Notes on the News.  Froggy.  Hillsborough; They Never Walked Alone.  The European Union Referendum Revisited.  Diary of a Corbyn foot-soldier.   Parliament Notes: Tax Avoidance and Tax Evasion.  Carles Clarke accusing Corbyn.  Listening to Italy by Orecchiette; Poems.  Also available as a PDF, Labour Affairs 267 – May 2016

Latest Editorials:

• April 2017: The Parliamentary Labour Party as Labour’s Timid Tendency;
• March 2017: Testing Times For Corbyn And Labour.

Three Months Ago:

• December 2016  – January 2017:
• Editorial: Corbyn: Could Do Better;
• Froggy: Fillon;
• Parliamentary Notes: the National Health Service;
• Has Trump Killed Neo-Liberalism?
• Is It All the Deep State?
• Russia Aggressively Defending Itself
• Pet Nazis as Good Nazis
• Wear Your Poppy In Praise of Senseless Bloodshed
• February 2017:
• Editorial: May’s Fantasy Brexit;
• Froggy;  the French National Front;
• Parliamentary Notes:NHS;
• Russia’s Aggressive Support for Self-Determination
• Blame It On The Boomers
• Green China?
• Die Hard as a Dangerous Driver
• Or Just Die
• Sorrows of South Sudan
• Sod Your Silly Oaths

From last year, now on-line:

• April 2016:
• Editorial: The Nationalisation and Privatisation of English Education.
• Parliament And World War One: the Allies and Greece;
• Industrial Democracy and Social Partnership;
• Letter about the Ghurkhas;
• Triumph of the Trump
• Sanders Revives US Socialism
• China Plays Safe
• The Civil War in Islam
• Parliament Notes – Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation;
• Also available as a PDF, Labour Affairs 266- April 2016
• March 2016:
• Editorial: If Britain leaves Europe should we care?; Rail, Rents and Housing (Part 2); Parliament And World War One – Banning Bertrand Russell;
• Europe is Built on Corpses and Plunder by Andre Vitchek;
• NATO and War by Mairead Corrigan;
• Thatcherism – Full of False Promises
• Young People Suffering
• Economic Stagnation: Praise the Bankers
• Gurkhas;
• Advert for a report on poverty

 

February 2016: Editorial: Open Letter to Hilary Benn on the Syrian Bombing; Parliament And World War One: ‘Defence of the Realm‘ against Betrand Russell; Corbyn’s Voting Record; MP’s Letters About the Syrian Bombing; ADS Annual Dinner: Aerospace, defence, securtiy, making friends with MPs; Rail, Rents and Housing (Part 1); Froggy;  Welfare and Work Reform Bill: Interview with Paul Morrison; Parliamentary Notes; Listening to Italy. Guernica Still Burns (poem); No Hounding Socialism (poem); Prime Minister’s Question Time (poem).  Also available as a PDF, Labour Affairs 264 February 2016.

February 2017: Editorial: May’s Fantasy Brexit; Parliament and WW1; Froggy; Charities and Organiser Salaries; Citrine and Bevin Part 1; Notes on the News; Diary of a Corbyn foot soldier (8); Parliament Notes; Listening to Italy by Orecchiette; Immunisation (poem); When We Think Of Victory (poem);

December 2015: Editorial 1:  A Thinking Labour Party; Editorial 2: Osborne’s Sleight Of Hand; Corbyn, An Honest Englishman; Existing State Of Things (poem); National Dementia (poem); Letter on Assisted Dying; Parliament And World War One – Redmond on the Easter Rising; Froggy; Notes on the News; Parliamentary Notes – Debate on Bombing Syria; The Foreign Affairs Select Committee on Syria.  Also available as a PDF, Labour Affairs 263 December – January 2016

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December 2016  – January 2017: Editorial: Corbyn: Could Do Better; Making worker representation on company boards a reality; Parliament And World War One – Abdication of the Czar of Russia; Richmond Park by-election;  Notes on the News; Don’t Cryogenic Me (poem); Froggy; Antisemitism in the UK; Free Speech On Israel; Debased Globalisation; Diary of a Corbyn foot soldier (No 7); Parliamentary Notes; Listening to Italy

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Also from October 2016: Froggy; Notes on the News and Parliament Notes now available on-line.

Newly Available On-Line:

Problems 23 – China: Nurturing Red Stars

• Why it become the job of the Chinese Communist Party to complete the necessary nationalist revolution that the Kuomintang had backed away from in 1927.
• The unexpected role of Madam Sun (Soong Ching-ling) in publicising and strengthening Mao Zedong via Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China.
• Full article, available online.
• Also available as aPDF, Problems 23 – Nurturing Red Stars

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Newly published, only available in print:

Problems 27 – China: Agnes Smedley’s Battle Hymn Against Japan

• Smedley as Stranger In Her Own Land
• Chinese Trotskyism
• The little-known Trotskyist influence on Khrushchev
• Witness at Xian – and Loose Cannon at Xian
• A Failed Sexual Revolution at Yenan
• Singing a Battle Hymn of China
• Persecution by the Ignorant and Powerful
• Death and Unjust Neglect

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Labour’s Next Leader?.  September 2016.

Jeremy Corbyn’s PLP critics claim that under his leadership Labour is unelectable. Some of these critics are the same people who were responsible for Labour losing the last two general elections. But rather than rally round Corbyn they have placed their faith in Owen Smith, a man with little more than six years experience as a member of parliament. Their aim, they say, is a Labour government. So what guarantees can they offer that, should Smith defeat Corbyn in the leadership election currently being held, Labour will win the next general election?

• Also Parliament And World War One: :Labour and the War;
• Froggy; 
• Notes on the News;
• Votes on Iraq;
• Welfare Reform;
• Diary of a Corbyn Foot Soldier (No.4);
• Whatever Happened to the Parliamentary Labour Party;
• Parliamentary Notes;
• Listening to Italy;
• Poems: A Murder Of Crows; The Haven; When Uncle Sam Comes To Visit.  (
• (To be posted on-line when 12 months old.)

From September 2015

• Editorial: What is a Real Opposition?
• Parliament And World War One Irish Adminstration,
• Froggy,
• Parliamentary Notes,
• Notes on the News,including Thatcherism as ‘Feed the Rich’.
• Listening to Italy.
• Also available as a PDF, labour-affairs-260-september-2015

Newly available on-line:

Problems 22 – China’s Blue Republic, 1912-49 . Also Stalin: Paradoxes of Power.

• China’s ‘Blue Republic’ lasted from 1912 to 1949, and achieved nothing.  It achieved nothing because it was trying to erect a copy of the complex political structures of the USA or Western Europe on top of a society that had very different value. And doing it with a false understanding of the intricate political processes that had occurred there.
• Also available as a PDF, Problems 22_China’s Blue Republic

Also newly published, available for now as print-only:

Problems 26 – Smedley: an American Woman Who Loved China’s Red Army (sample)

• How Agnes Smedley found a life’s purpose in China
• Her connection with super-spy Richard Sorge
• Her account of the little-known Red Areas in South China
• The surprising neglect of her work by later writers
• How she told a genuinely unknown and potentially damaging story about Mao
• The cowboy scholarship of ‘Wild Swan’ Chang and ‘Doc’ Halliday.
• Her account of the ‘A.B. Group’, an early split within the Red Army
• The Chinese Social Democrats’ efforts to created a functional Third Force