Opinion

Though many of the main elements of Labour's 2017 election manifesto and its 'For The Many Not The Few' pitch were leaked last week, the full manifesto is well worth a read as it offers a very different vision for Britain than the Conservatives have given us so far. Some policies here really designed to spread the wealth and happiness while reinvesting in the institutions that make Britain great. Theresa May is expected to publish her manifesto on Thursday -...

By James Clark Despite the hysteric ramblings of the established British press, Jeremy Corbyn is no revolutionary socialist. It takes little consideration to realise that the policies which Corbyn’s Labour propose do not intend to threaten the existence of the capitalist system. The state, money and the wage system still have a role in Corbyn and his follower’s vision for British society. Indeed, Labour’s objective appears to be to manage capitalism in a way that suits the interests of business,...

By Mohamed Abdirahaman Saman, International Medical Corps, Somalia emergency response team When I met Nalow Hassan two weeks ago, the 30-year-old wife and mother had already lost two children. Aged six and four, the two youngsters had succumbed to acute watery diarrhoea. Now she is on the brink of losing a third - her youngest, 15-month-old Ahmed Abdi, who is seriously ill and Nalow and her husband Abdi have no money to pay for medical care. Tears streaming down her face,...

It was Richard Nixon who got me into politics, and now that he's gone, I feel lonely. He was a giant in his way. As long as Nixon was politically alive -- and he was, all the way to the end -- we could always be sure of finding the enemy on the Low Road. There was no need to look anywhere else for the evil bastard. He had the fighting instincts of a badger trapped by hounds. The badger...

Education is in crisis. The government don’t want you to know this, just in case you start to doubt that we have a ‘strong and stable’ country. The government has slashed funding for the education of the masses. It doesn’t take someone who’s just aced their Year 6 Maths SATs to realise that more kids due to increasing population = more staff to pay to teach, support and equip these children. Add to that routine inflation each year and the...

Four years ago, I saw four young men going through the bins on the estate by my office, looking for food. I was staggered to discover that they all had jobs, but had only just started work and had to wait 5 weeks for their first pay cheques. After being on benefits for some time, these young men had got off their backsides and secured work, yet the state was refusing to help out in the period between the stoppage...

This week has seen the French political landscape change significantly on two fronts. Emmanuel Macron was elected the youngest President ever as head of a new party that exists outside of the dominant Parti socialiste on the left and Les Républicains on the right, an achievement that would have been considered impossible in a normal political environment. But these ain't normal times. The early years of the 21st century have been characterised by vast amounts of change which has been amplified by digital technology...

By Andy Irwin One hundred days ago, I stopped drinking alcohol. I stopped because, for ten years, my dependence on booze meant that I lost a lot of time. I made bad choices and lost touch with a bunch of people I cared about, and who cared about me. I frequently made a scene or woke up far away from where I was supposed to be. ‘Alcohol-dependent’ is a strong phrase; ‘alcoholic’ is a strong word. ‘Problematic drinking’ is the phrase...

Not to sound ungrateful, but inheriting a country that is awash with unaffordable housing, mega inflated education fees, toxic air and a juicy divorce case with its biggest trading partner is a pretty shoddy settlement as far as young Brits are concerned. MPs last week warned that young Brits will be priced out of the housing market for years because of a lack of urgency from “unambitious” ministers. The powerful cross-party Committee panned the Department of Communities in a scathing report for...