Climate change actions close London bridges and roads

Thousands of people responded to the call by Extinction Rebellion to close down roads and bridges in London on April 15 in support of the demand to the government to begin to respond to climate breakdown. At Waterloo Bridge, one of the main crossing points from South London over the Thames hundreds of people surged across the road at both ends blocking all traffic except bicycles and pedestrians. Photo-report by Peter Arkell

Leave protesters in Parliament Square. Photo: Howard Jones

How Labour can answer the far right’s attack on democracy

As Theresa May reaches out to Jeremy Corbyn in her efforts to solve the Brexit crisis in Parliament, it’s clear that the usual form of politics in the UK has ended.

Brexit is viewed by many people as an unnecessary and dangerous right-wing diversion from the big issues facing society as a whole. But this is a one-sided view. As Laura Kuenssberg noted in her BBC2 documentary, Brexit has now essentially morphed into a crisis of the political system…

How Evald Ilyenkov was ‘found’

How a philosopher considered the most significant theorist of the Soviet era came to influence Nordic, British, American and German thinkers, as well as revolutionary activists, is revealed in Finding Evald Ilyenkov.

Through the cameo stories of leading Ilyenkov scholars, Finding Evald Ilyenkov traces how academics, researchers and practitioners in the UK, Denmark, Finland, Canada and Russia were drawn to his work.

Written in an accessible style it introduces an uncompromising thinker to new generations searching for dynamic approaches to knowledge and practice.
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Constitution is broken – let the people make a new one 

Such is the fragility of the political system in Britain that it only takes a few words in the shape of an indicative ruling by the Speaker of the House of Commons to spark off what the government’s Solicitor General has described as a “major constitutional crisis”.

There’s nothing green about bio-energy

The story of bio-fuels is a moral tale of how marketised, profit-driven responses to climate change will both fail to solve the problem and cause unconsidered damaging outcomes. Penny Cole reviews The Bio-fuel Deception: Going Hungry on the Green Carbon Diet by Okbazghi Yohannes

Schools Strike 4 Climate Action

Tens of thousands of school students around the world walked out on strike on March 15 to demand that politicians take decisive action against climate breakdown. In the second of the co-ordinated actions organised by Schools Strike 4 Climate Action, there were protests in an estimated 100 countries, and in about 60 towns in the UK. Thousands skipped school to march through Brighton, and thousands more turned out in Scotland. In London, pupils, some with their parents, streamed into Parliament Square before marching up Whitehall and past Downing Street, many carrying home-made banners demanding system change and an end to the apathy of governments. Photo report of the London action by Peter Arkell

Sleaford Mods & Liines gig review

It was International Women’s Day and Liines were doing themselves proud to a big crowd, who quickly warm to this 3 piece from Manchester and for good reason. There’s a non pretentious style & substance to this band, all in black, cool light blue Telecaster and 2 tone bass, but it’s in their sound that the band impress. Dylan Strain reviews a gig at Middlesbrough Town Hall

South Shields takes on fight against neoliberalism

A hugely successful ‘Make 2019 the year Corbyn becomes PM’ meeting in South Shields agreed a programme of action to take the fight against neoliberalism and for real democracy into other parts of the North East. Jointly organised by Momentum South Tyneside and the Real Democracy Movement, the event at the South Shields Museum and Art Gallery on February 23 was warmly supported by local activists. A range of speakers made contributions alongside workshops discussing how to meet the attacks a Corbyn-led government would face from the state, big business and finance, the media and from within the Parliamentary Labour Party. These were based on the scenarios in What if? published by the RDM.

Neoliberalism is the engine driving the climate crisis

A Presentation to South Shields meeting “Make 2019 the year Corbyn becomes PM” jointly organised by Real Democracy Movement – Penny Cole, on line from Lochwinnoch

The IPCC report that came out at the end of last year stated there are 12 years left to act before catastrophic climate change becomes unavoidable. News of the report mobilised hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren to go on strike and brought the start of the Extinction Rebellion movement.

In the midst of splits and political meltdown, a way forward for Labour 

The resignation of eight Labour MPs and three Tories from their parties in order to form a reactionary “Independent” Group in the House of Commons is a clear indication that the present Parliamentary system is in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Holding the fractured system together looks like mission impossible. A strategy to renew and extend democracy is essential, especially for the Labour Party if it is to succeed in ousting the Tories and coming to power. Read more

Poetry as witness and engine of change

I am large, I contain multitudes. Walt Whitman’s words in Song of Myself capture the generous and expansive spirit of one of America’s best-known poets. They also perfectly describe the outcome of months and years of labour by fellow poet and editor al-Sayegh who has just published two books by poets Stephen Watts and Jenny Lewis in Arabic & English.
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McCullin’s photographic voice for the people

The photographs are stunning, of war and poverty and suffering mainly, all in black and white and accompanied in each of the ten display rooms by a revealing quote from the photographer who took them – Don McCullin. McCullin who is 83 now but still working, grew up in a deprived part of north London and got his break with a picture of a gang, all mates of his, posing and looking cool inside an old house that had lost its frontage. Read more

Ruskin – a man of his time and of our time

Events around the country are celebrating the bi-centenary of John Ruskin’s birth on 8 February – #Ruskin200. Thinker, campaigner, artist, scientist, educator and social critic John Ruskin was one of the most contradictory of all the famous Victorians.

He was both a man of his time and a man looking to the future – even while distraught about the world around him. Read more

Mapping out the road from Wigan Pier

RDM supporters from around the UK came together in November at Wigan’s Sunshine House.  Getting to grips with neoliberalism teach/learn-in  discussed four presentations – on climate change, precarity, democracy and culture and identity.  Read the report: Mapping out the road from Wigan Pier.

Why capitalism is crisis