PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT – TIME FOR THE FIGHTBACK

Posted on December 10, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Community and tagged activism, activists, anti austerity, Arcadia Group, austerity, Australia, bedroom tax, benefits, Boris Johnson, campaigning, climate crisis, climate jobs, construction, corruption, Covid-19, cronyism, CWU, Debenhams, east anglia, engineering, eviction ban, featured, fossil fuels, furlough scheme, gig economy, government, green economy, green industrial revolution, Hospitality, hospitals, Jane Loftus, Jo Rust, jobs, King's Lynn, Labour, MPs, nationalisation, NHS, norwich, pandemic, People Before Profit, Philip Green, PPE, public ownership, recession, redundancies, retail, Serco, social security, tax reform, Topshop, Tories, tourism, trade unions, TUC, uk, Universal Credit, welfare state, wildfires.

By John Sillett

The recent collapse into administration of shop group Arcadia and Debenhams’ department stores was shocking, but not unexpected. Both companies have had their assets looted by their owners; Arcadia’s owner Philip Green has become widely seen as the unacceptable face of capitalism. Whilst the vultures pick over the bones of Topshop and its relations, there has been an avalanche of redundancies in many sectors, from construction to engineering. The pandemic has hastened the collapse or rationalisation of companies depending on footfall, like retail, hospitality and tourism.

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REVIEW: STATE AND SOCIETY, BY MARTIN PUGH

Posted on June 5, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged academic, bank reform, book, Britain, corporate, corruption, economy, election, general election, history, imbalance, inequality, jeremy corbyn, job loss, margaret thatcher, martin pugh, politics, privatisation, reading, review, selling, state and society, statistics, stats, student, tax, tax reform, theresa may, tony blair, uk, undergraduate, working class.

When Theresa May announced her snap election, I was travelling across Japan. At the time I was spending a lot of time on a variety of very slow trains (the famous bullet trains were somewhat beyond our budget). This gave me a lot of down-time to ponder my electoral choices, and consider which way I should vote. It also gave me a lot of time to read the latest tome of modern history I had picked up: Martin Pugh’s State and Society; a social and political history of Britain since 1870. It is not a politicised book; it markets itself as a rigorous work of academic history, designed to introduce new undergraduates to the period – a task it performs superbly.

However, this is a politicised book review.Continue Reading

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