BEST LEADERSHIP FORWARD: WHERE’S THE OPPOSITION?

Posted on January 13, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged andy burnham, Angela Rayner, AOC, conservatives, corbyn, David Lammy, education, election, featured, hartlepool, keir starmer, Labour, labour party, lid bem, local election, new labour, party, politics, polls, sadiq khan, tony blair, uk, uk politics.

by Sunetra Senior

To mount successful opposition, Labour Leader, Keir Starmer, must embody an Evolved Left.

The ambiguous outcome of the recent by-election at North Shropshire has been telling: screaming even. Starmer is a leader of airs over recognisable reformative action. A microcosm of the calamity of the general election in the summer, the traditionally Tory stronghold in the North of England was lost to the Liberal Democrats as opposed to Labour, despite it being fertile territory for the latter in the wake of recent Conservative catastrophe: the explicit exposure of corruption, incompetent handling of the pandemic and the creeping economic fallout of Brexit, have seen the Tories floundering in the polls. Starmer’s red party should enjoy a stronger lead. A piece for Open Democracy states: “After the Conservatives, the biggest loser from this by-election is Labour. The party shed more than half of its vote share, from 22% to 10%, and was pushed into third place.” This is a deepening of the disillusionment from the nation-wide local election held earlier this year. Labour failed to make substantial gains, while also unable to regain Hartlepool as the party’s traditional heartland. For someone who made ‘winning’ a lynchpin of his manifesto as announced at the annual Labour conference in Autumn, Starmer’s performance has been persistently poor.

JACOB REES-MOGG, JEREMY CORBYN, COURTESY AND CONVICTION

Posted on February 24, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged Bernie Sanders, bigotry, British Raj, Donald Trump, featured, government, gramsci, high office, homophobia, ideology, jacob rees-mogg, jeremy corbyn, Labour, mask, monsters, Nesrine Malik, parallels, politician, politics, polls, popularity, roman catholic, Silvio Berslusconi, theresa may, Tory, uk, westminster.

by Justin Reynolds

Writing in the midst of Europe’s interwar turbulence, the Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci observed that ‘the old world is dying away, and the new world struggles to come forth: now is the time of monsters.’ Though contemporary parallels with Gramsci’s troubled world can be overplayed, these transitional times have spawned, if not monsters, an impressive array of fabulous beasts.

Donald Trump is President of the United States. Self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders almost won the Democrat nomination. Silvio Berlusconi is once again on the verge of becoming the leading powerbroker in Italian politics. Jeremy Corbyn emerged from the deepest political wilderness to lead the Labour Party.

If, as the Brexit negotiations intensify, Theresa May’s vestigial authority finally fades away, the Government may have little option but to take a chance with a charismatic leader able to hold it together through sheer force of personality. And it is no longer absurd to suggest that, just as Labour members insisted on Corbyn, the Tories might turn to his mirror-image, Jacob Rees-Mogg.Continue Reading

YOUNG VOTERS – DAMNED IF WE DO AND DAMNED IF WE DON’T

Posted on June 20, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Student and tagged anti-intellectualism, Brexit, Brexit negotiations, class, class divides, conservatives, cost of living, demographics, DUP, EU referendum, experience, GE17, generation gap, government, grades, graduates, housing benefit, hung parliament, hypocrisy, jeremy corbyn, Labour, lecturers, liberal ideals, Michael Gove, minimum wage, political economics, polls, property ladder, rent, snap election, student debt, student votes, students, Thatcherite, theresa may, turnout, young people, young voters.

by Alex Powell

Seeing the reaction to the snap general election result has been fascinating. For years, young people, particularly students, were criticised for not going out and voting. June 8th 2017 was the day we did. The result? A hung parliament that defied all expectations. In the lead up to the election, all the indications suggested that the Tories would win a landslide, even if the gap had begun to close in the final polls. In the end, this was far from how things played out, leaving Theresa May without a majority and forced to rely on the DUP to pass her key votes.

THE LEFT HAS DEFIED THE ODDS. NOW WE NEED TO SHAPE HISTORY.

Posted on June 16, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged academia, access, accountability, activism, activists, agitate, anti-establishment, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Bright Green, campaigning, citizens, climate change, conservatives, democracy, democratic education, direct action, diversity, economics, election, empowerment, establishment, Free Education, GE17, general election, grassroots, grassroots media, higher education, independent media, inequality, internal democracy, jeremy corbyn, Labour, Labour manifesto, left, Lincoln, mainstream media, media, media bias, Norwich Radical, Novara Media, openDemocracy, Parliament, parliamentary majority, political apathy, politics, polls, power, progressive alliance, progressive parties, Rethinking Economics, Social Science Centre, strategy, students, technology, theresa may, training, Trump, truth to power, upskilling, voter engagement, voters.

by Bradley Allsop

For the third time in a year an earthquake has rocked the political establishment, upsetting polls, pundits and precedent alike. Yet this time, unlike the division and isolation of Brexit, or the utter horror of Trump, we instead have hope. Snatching insurgence from the jaws of implosion, Labour and the broader left have risen to the edge of power. Yet whilst the election result was an excellent start, surviving the challenges our society faces will require much more. We need to build a movement which aims for nothing less than a complete transformation of our society. It is crucial now that we do not succumb to hubris or allow ourselves to be absorbed by the internal Conservative party debates – we need to use the time granted by their division to plan, organise and mobilise the movement that will transform Britain.

IF NOT NOW, THEN WHEN? – STUDENTS AND THE ELECTION #6

Posted on June 6, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged #GE2017, armed forces, Article 50, austerity, buses, clive lewis, commentary, cuts, education, end poverty, EU, EU citizens, EU referendum, exit poll, Free Education, general election, Green Party, higher education, jeremy corbyn, journalism, Labour, left wing, Liberal Democrats, living wage, london, manifesto, MPs, Northampton, norwich south, NUS, Parliament, politics, polls, prime minister, privatisation, public services, rent, rights, shadow cabinet, snap election, student politics, student vote, students, Students and the Election, Sure Start, tactical voting, tax, theresa may, Tim Farron, Tories, UEA, UEA Labour Students, universities, voters, voting, wages, Wales, work.

from a member of UEA Labour Students

In the midst of multiple crises faced by students, universities and schools, the outcome of the snap general election will be a major indicator of the future of the UK education sector. Each week until the vote we are featuring perspectives from our regular contributors and guests on what the election could mean for students.

Having resolved to sit down today and write this article, I’m struck by the appropriateness of my day. I caught the bus to UEA from outside one of the few remaining Sure Start centres, a public service provided by the last Labour government which has been decimated by the Conservatives (and Liberal Democrats) since 2010. My bus was 40 minutes late, the consequence of a privatised, under-funded service – and even the previously UEA-hosted launderette I went to had been privatised since I last used it. It served as a strong reminder of the power of Labour government to change lives for the better, which contrasts with the crumbling services and privatisation festival that has characterised the last 7 years of Conservative and ConDem government.

VOTE PROGRESSIVE, VOTE FOR OUR FUTURE – STUDENTS AND THE ELECTION #4

Posted on May 26, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged #GE2017, campaigning, clive lewis, Compass, course cuts, cuts, elitism, Free Education, general election, Green Party, Havant, higher education, international students, Johnathan Bartley, Labour, Liberal Democrats, london, marketisation, norwich, politics, polls, progressive alliance, Sian Berry, snap election, student politics, student vote, students, Students and the Election, tactical voting, Tories, tuition fees, UKIP, universities, voters, voting.

by Robyn Banks

There is a lot of fear about the morning of June 9th. Will we wake up to a Tory super-majority that will see them stay in charge for the next 15 years? To a renewed age of cuts that hurt the poorest and most vulnerable in society, that disembowel the education system from primary to higher, and that destroy the environmental protections (or ‘Green Crap’) that will ensure that we have a safer and more secure future for our world? Or will the sun rise on something else? With the polls getting closer and closer, a miraculous Labour Party win isn’t off the table just yet.

US ELECTIONS: WHAT WENT WRONG?

Posted on November 11, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged anti-establishment, barack obama, Bernie Sanders, bias, Brexit, Clinton, CNN, conservative, democrat, Donald Trump, Drumpf, election, elite, establishment, fox news, Hillary Clinton, house, immigration, justice, lgbtQ+, media, minorities, MSM, neo-con, policies, polls, POTUS, republican, Senate, Supreme Court, taxes, Trump, Trumpwins, US president, US presidential election, wall.

by Gunnar Eigener

The victory of Donald Trump to become the 45th President of the United States has shocked and dumbfounded many. What does it say about the state of politics when the first female major party presidential candidate – who was, by far, the most technically qualified – is defeated by a man who has never held any political office? Continue Reading

THE POLLS AREN’T WRONG: SADIQ KHAN WILL BE LONDON’S NEXT MAYOR

Posted on April 22, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged Boris Johnson, british politics, conservative, electoral statistics, goldsmith vs khan, Ken Livingston, Labour, london mayor, mayor, mayoral election, polls, sadiq khan, statistics, Zac Goldsmith.

by Elliot Folan

With the London Mayoral election nearly upon us, opinion polls for the contest are finally beginning to emerge in force. And each one of them tells the same story: Sadiq Khan, the Labour candidate, is in the lead.

He wasn’t always. Back when the race for the Mayoral nominations began, Khan and the Conservative candidate, Zac Goldsmith, were much closer – at one point Goldsmith had an 8-point lead. But as the race began in earnest, Khan opened up a large lead that hasn’t gone away. Currently, a simple average of polls in the last month (7th March-7th April, when the last poll was conducted) puts Khan on 54% to Goldsmith’s 46%.

polls

BEST LEADERSHIP FORWARD: WHERE’S THE OPPOSITION?

by Sunetra Senior

JACOB REES-MOGG, JEREMY CORBYN, COURTESY AND CONVICTION

YOUNG VOTERS – DAMNED IF WE DO AND DAMNED IF WE DON’T

IF NOT NOW, THEN WHEN? – STUDENTS AND THE ELECTION #6

VOTE PROGRESSIVE, VOTE FOR OUR FUTURE – STUDENTS AND THE ELECTION #4

US ELECTIONS: WHAT WENT WRONG?

THE POLLS AREN’T WRONG: SADIQ KHAN WILL BE LONDON’S NEXT MAYOR

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