Liam Mac Uaid
19 October 2015 · · 1 comment
I’d rather be a rebel than a slave
Liam Mac Uaid reviews Suffragette The natural response to learning that Helena Bonham-Carter is playing a leading role in a film about the suffragettes is a momentary panic that it's going t…
6 October 2015 · · 1 comment
Matt Damon, Martian ecologist
Liam Mac Uaid In Capital (volume 3), Karl Marx observed: “In London . . . they can do nothing better with the excrement produced by 4 1/2 million people than pollute the Thames with it, at m…
11 March 2015 · · 1 comment
The Ukrainian workers are willing to fight
"Meetings like this are important because we may not be alive for very much longer." Those were the chilling words of Yuriy Samoylov, Chair of the NGPU (Independent Trade Union of Miners Ukr…
7 March 2015 · · 6 comments
London climate demonstration shows new radical mood
Around 25 000 people marched through central London on March 7th to protest against government inertia in dealing with climate change writes Liam Mac Uaid . It follows last September's large…
26 January 2015 · · 5 comments
SYRIZA and the bleedin’ obvious
If SYRIZA has come to power on a programme of public beheadings, banning women from driving and torturing its critics, it may have received a slightly warmer welcome from the governments of …
18 December 2014 · · 12 comments
Banning the SWP isn't an answer
The SWP leadership's handling of the rape allegations against a former prominent full-time staff member identified as "Delta" has left the organisation more isolated and numerically as well …
17 October 2014 · · 6 comments
SWP unity appeal leaves the big questions unanswered
The current edition of Socialist Worker carries an appeal for the left to start working together writes Liam Mac Uaid . As active supporters of Left Unity, this is an aim that Socialist Resi…
11 October 2014 · · 1 comment
What fresh hell is this? Oh, Belfast
Liam Mac Uaid reviews ‘71, a gripping anti-war thriller https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIYDNyEkJP4#action=share It’s always the way. When a soldier in an occupying army gets separated from …
13 September 2014 · · 4 comments
Something to be proud of
Liam Mac Uaid reviews Pride. Potential recruits who visit MI5’s website are reassured “We work with Stonewall and have an active Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) staff network, wh…
29 August 2014 · · 1 comment
Two days of quiet desperation
Liam Mac Uaid reviews "Two Days, One Night" "They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half." In late 1960 and early 1961 the Belgian working class took to the…
19 July 2014 ·
“We are all Palestinians”
Tens of thousands of people marched from Downing Street, home of the British prime minister to the Israeli state’s London embassy on Saturday July 19th writes Liam Mac Uaid . It was a nice w…
13 July 2014 · · 1 comment
Workers rebel against pay cuts
The British labour movement's response to austerity has been among the most passive in Europe writes Liam Mac Uaid . The announcement that the Tories intend to keep on imposing real terms wa…
3 June 2014 ·
Jimmy's Hall and the Irish Counter Revolution
A visual representation of counter-revolution triumphant Liam Mac Uaid reviews Ken Loach's new film. The two states in Ireland were the product of a revolution that acknowledged defeat in 19…
24 May 2014 · · 10 comments
UKIP leads race to the gutter
image no longer in the archive The best place for it From the coverage of the English local election results and the relentless Farage mania you would think that the United Kingdom Independe…
19 April 2014 · · 2 comments
An imitation of Christ
image no longer in the archive May this cup be taken from me. Liam Mac Uaid reviews Calvary. In his book Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate Terry Eagleton took up t…
24 March 2014 · · 52 comments
Ukraine - the Russians are the aggressors
Putin! Hands off Ukraine - at Moscow anti-war protest (pic Ben Neal via RS21) The Russian seizure of Crimea has sharply divided opinion on the British left writes Liam Mac Uaid . On one side…
11 March 2014 · · 2 comments
Bob Crow - an appreciation
The conclusion that most union leaders in Britain drew after the defeat of the miners’ strike was that militancy, strike action and class struggle didn’t work writes Liam Mac Uaid . A genera…
28 January 2014 · · 4 comments
Llewyn Davis, troubadour as hipster wastrel
image no longer in the archive In Dalston over the sea If you’ve spent a lifetime going to the cinema you probably won’t have heard one character accuse another of being a Shachtmanite write…
25 January 2014 · · 1 comment
The amoral, drug addled, anti-social, thieving Wolf of Wall Street
An amoral, drug addled, misogynistic, anti-social, thieving, wife beater? If your inner anti-capitalist has ever suspected that major financial institutions are home to a bunch of coked up w…
11 January 2014 · · 1 comment
12 Years a Slave - unflinching cinema
image no longer in the archive England was the dominant slave trading nation in the latter part of the seventeenth century writes Liam Mac Uaid . Africans were transported to the Caribbean a…
3 December 2013 · · 6 comments
Ireland isn’t England
English based progressive parties, including Left Unity, should not organise in Ireland. Liam Mac Uaid explains why that’s a matter of principle for socialists. There are about 1.5 million p…
1 December 2013 · · 18 comments
Left Unity launched
The first indication that Left Unity is different from most other left wing organisations came very early in its November 30th founding conference writes Liam Mac Uaid . Ken Loach, the perso…
8 November 2013 · · 1 comment
God’s gravitational pull
image no longer in the archive George Clooney is probably the most consistently artistically adventurous mainstream Hollywood star and his new film Gravity takes him in a pleasingly unpredic…
23 June 2013 · · 7 comments
People's Assembly - success, challenges and politics
image no longer in the archive Len McCluskey isn't fond of Tories If anyone has made a film about a delegate's day at the People's Assembly it probably starts with her listening to the day's…
27 January 2013 · · 1 comment
Lincoln - impressive cinematic myth making
In the 1930s the United States government commissioned large numbers of artists as a way of giving them work during the New Deal writes Liam Mac Uaid . If Obama were running a similar progra…
15 November 2012 · · 16 comments
How federalism failed the Irish left
The United Left Alliance (ULA) was launched in Dublin in late November 2010 to contest the southern Irish general election a few weeks later. Liam Mac Uaid explains why it is falling apart a…
12 September 2012 · · 14 comments
Salma Yaqoob’s dignified exit
Salma Yaqoob’s resignation from Respect can, or so it seems from the outside, only mean the death of the organisation writes Liam Mac Uaid . The announcement on her website says “I feel nece…
26 August 2012 · · 1 comment
Shadow Dancer: A review
By the early 1990s it was apparent that the IRA had been militarily defeated by the British. The fantasy that an organisation of a few hundred active members could beat a professional army o…
18 August 2012 · · 1 comment
The Iranian Revolution – Socialism and Theocracy
Part of the forgotten story of the Middle East is that in the 1970s a working class revolution in Iran overthrew the old regime and there were a number of secular, socialist organisations co…
3 August 2012 · · 2 comments
Pussy Riot - Rock and Roll Heroines
Over the last few years the entertainment industry in Britain has cheerfully allowed itself to be conscripted by the Ministry of Defence writes Liam Mac Uaid . Its TV and music sectors have …
19 May 2012 · · 1 comment
The Dictator - a faint whiff of Islamophobia
image no longer in the archive There are two mainstream comedies with “dictator” in the title writes Liam Mac Uaid . One of them ends with the main character addressing his cinema audiences …
6 October 2011 · · 35 comments
Apple’s rotten core
None of the eulogies for Steve Jobs are likely to have much to say about the people who made his fortune writes Liam Mac Uaid . Apple has pioneered an aggressive anti-union strategy both in …
19 August 2011 ·
From Pension Struggles to Political Representation
Liam Mac Uaid Writing about the London riots Tariq Ali argued : “were there a serious political opposition party in this country it would be arguing for dismantling the shaky scaffolding of …
10 May 2010 · · 1 comment
Does Britain have a fascist movement?
Liam Mac Uaid argues that while Britain does not have a mass fascist movement the votes for the far right and the durability of groups like the BNP point to their potential. The far right in…