Dave Randall is an activist and guitarist with the band Faithless and his own band Slovo. He is the author of the recently released Sound System: The Political Power of Music. 麻豆传媒 Weekly鈥檚 Barry Healy spoke to him about music and politics.
Britain
Everyone sensed the new energy at this year鈥檚 Labour Party conference, held in Brighton from September 24-27.
The reality of the conference was something not seen in Britain for a long time: thousands of determined and self-confident members of a Labour Party that boldly stands for what they believe in.
As a teenager, British writer and musician Dave Randall unwittingly attended a music festival in his home town where he heard the Special AKA sing聽鈥淔ree Nelson Mandela鈥. He experienced an epiphany.
Britain鈥檚 main trade union confederation, the Trade Union Congress (TUC),聽held its 149th annual conference in Brighton on September 10-13. The gathering brought together hundreds of leaders, organisers, delegates and activists from more than 50 TUC-affiliated trade unions.
The conference discussed and adopted motions of support and campaign plans to oppose the austerity measures of the Conservative-Democratic Unionist Party government of Prime Minister Theresa May.
Miss Muriel Matters
Robert Wainwright
ABC Books, 2017
376 pages
In 1909, Muriel Matters planned to rain on the parade of King Edward VII to the ceremonial opening of parliament. She aimed to drop a shower of 鈥淰otes for Women鈥 leaflets on his head from a chartered air balloon trailing streamers in the white, gold and green of the Women鈥檚 Freedom League (WFL).
The strike at two branches of McDonald鈥檚 in Britain was 鈥渏ust the start鈥, Labour鈥檚 shadow chancellor John McDonnell said on September 4. Speaking at a rally outside Parliament the day before, the shadow chancellor hailed the striking workers as an 鈥渁bsolute inspiration鈥.
Workers at the burger giant鈥檚 restaurants in Cambridge and Crayford, south-east London, downed aprons in protest at the harassment of workers and the victimisation of union members.
狈补迟丑补苍听is a young London-based activist who has joined the British Labour Party as a supporter of the platform of socialist leader Jeremy Corbyn. A student who is part of the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts and a member of , Roberts was recently in Australia for the Radical Ideas conference in Melbourne organised by over August 18-20.
In his September 2 article 鈥淩esponding on Sanders and reforming the Democrats鈥, Barry Sheppard fundamentally mischaracterises the position I outlined in 鈥淪ocialists and Bernie Sanders鈥. I specifically did not argue in favour of the far left in the US trying to 鈥渞eform鈥 the Democratic Party.
The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger portrays British Marxist cultural commentator John Berger over a period of five years.
I know exactly where I was on August 9, 2007. It was a hot summer鈥檚 day 鈥 鈥渄ebtonation day鈥.
Bankers all over the world had lost their collective nerve and refused to lend to each other. The globally synchronised financial system froze, and began its descent into sustained failure. It then took more than a year, and Lehman Brothers鈥 collapse, before the world understood the gravity of the crisis.
Ten years on, that slow-motion crisis, a prolonged period of disinflation, noflation and deflation, is still playing out.
Britain Labour opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, has said he is saddened by the violence and loss of life in Venezuela, 鈥渆ither of those on the streets or of the security forces who have been attacked by those on the streets鈥.
鈥淰iolence is not going to solve the issues,鈥 Corbyn told the media, at the end of a local party meeting in the southern English town of Crawley. He said there has to be dialogue and a process that respects Venezuela's institutions, including the independence of the judiciary.
In June 1940, Winston Churchill described the German rout of the French, Belgian and British armies and the seaborne evacuation of 338,000 troops from Dunkirk in northern France as a 鈥渃olossal military disaster鈥.
For a nation whose national identity is intimately bound up with victory and conquest, it is paradoxical that the retreat from Dunkirk has become such an important part of British mythology.
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