Phil Hearse
23 September 2020 · · Britain, Covid-19, Scotland, Tories · 1 comment
Left must oppose ‘live with virus’ doctrine
As this is written, the Tory UK government is putting in place in England further local lockdowns and restrictions on gatherings, calling for people to work from home again if possible, and …
10 January 2020 · · Britain, Labour Party · 2 comments
Must Labour move right to secure its working-class base?
Phil Hearse argues that the Blairite Right and Lexit Left are drawing all the wrong conclusions from the general election. In the wake of the Tory electoral victory, attempts to draw lessons…
3 December 2019 · · Algeria, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, International, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan · 2 comments
Rebellion and Reaction – Worldwide anti-austerity upsurge met with brutal repression
Across the globe workers, indigenous people and youth are taking to the streets to protest against austerity, corruption, dictatorship and climate extinction – despite the setback of elector…
15 May 2019 · · Culture, Far right
Radical web under threat as cash pours in to far right media
A decade ago the Left believed that it could use social media to outflank the established mass media. But it is the far right that now dominates social media, writes Phil Hearse. Two recent …
29 April 2019 · · Far right, Reviews
Postfascism: the rise of the radical right
Phil Hearse reviews New Faces of Fascism by Enzo Traverso, Verso, 2018 The forward surge of fascist and far right movements, symbolised by figures like Trump, Bolsonaro in Brazil and Salvini…
24 October 2018 · · Britain, Education
Beware of Ofsted inspectors bearing gifts
Phil Hearse analyses the statement on the 11 October from Ofsted that it is going to overhaul the way it inspects schools in England, downgrading the influence of exam results. Is Ofsted rea…
12 October 2018 · · Britain, Far right · 1 comment
Far Right – Threat or Phantom?
Phil Hearse analyses the far-right in Britain today with its anti-establishment and nationalist narratives. It faces serious obstacles with the workers movement and Corbyn’s Labour Party. Bu…
24 May 2018 · · Reviews
Is Fascism Inevitable?
Phil Hearse reviews Can Democracy Survive Globalised Capitalism? by Robert Kuttner, Norton Publishers, May 2018 Since the global financial crisis in 2007-8, and the consequent anti-capitalis…
3 May 2018 · · Britain, France, Our History, students
1968 seen from Britain
None of the key events of 1968 happened in Britain, but they impacted dramatically on the configuration of the Left, writes Phil Hearse . One socialist journal said it was “the year the ice …
13 March 2018 · · Britain, Labour Party, Uncategorized · 1 comment
Austerity, Brexit and the Corbyn challenge
After the harshest winter for more than a decade, Britain finds itself still gripped by the icy fingers of neoliberal austerity, writes Phil Hearse . Both the health service (NHS) and local …
22 October 2017 · · USA
Steve Bannon on the road to far right dominance
Phil Hearse examines Steve Bannon's recent speech in which he explains how the hard right in the United States can stay in power “for 50 or 75 years”. Steve Bannon’s October 20 speech to Cal…
6 September 2017 · · Azerbaijan, South Africa
This the way the world works: Azerbaijan and Bell Pottinger
Stories hitting the British papers yesterday give a graphic insight into the way that neoliberal capitalism really works, writes Phil Hearse . And how British finance and public relations co…
29 August 2016 · · Turkey
Turkey’s incursion in Syria aims to defeat the Kurds and overthrow Rojava
Phil Hearse reports: Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria on 24 August was flagged up as a move to drive the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) out of the border town of Jarabulus. But that is…
7 April 2016 ·
Neoliberalism's world of corruption
by Phil Hearse The Panama Papers’ revelations about the rich and powerful hiding untold billions in ‘offshore’ tax havens may be shocking, but it’s hardly a surprise to anyone who knows the …
3 September 2014 · · 2 comments
The truth about UKIP and the Tory right
Phil Hearse examines what’s behind the continuing rise of UKIP The defection of Clacton MP Douglas Carswell from the Tories gives the UK Independence Party (UKIP) the near certainty of getti…
15 March 2014 · · 4 comments
Tony Benn: a vision to inspire and mobilise
It is a bitter irony that Tony Benn has died in the very same week as Bob Crow, two giants of the labour movement who will be cruelly missed writes Phil Hearse . Numerous instant obituaries …
19 February 2014 · · 6 comments
Is private enterprise possible in a post-capitalist economy?
Why would you want to nationalise this? At the end of the Left Unity founding conference last November, a member of the Class Struggle platform (aka Workers Power) jumped up with a ‘point of…
21 January 2014 · · 3 comments
The New Left and the 1960s: 1956-66 : The Crystallisation of a Militant Left
Members of the Young Communist League outside Charing Cross station sell Challenge protesting Queen Frederika’s state visit “The ‘first’ New Left was born in 1956, a conjuncture—not just a y…
1 August 2013 ·
The Arab Spring - results and prospects
Phil Hearse reviews The People Want by Gilbert Achcar, Saqi Books, 2013, £17.99 Is the Arab Spring heading towards what more than one commentator has called ‘Libyan winter’? Was it after all…
12 July 2013 · · 1 comment
Mission Impossible?- Fight to reconquer Labour or build a broad left party?
No one said it was easy A supporter of the Morning Star/CPB, under the pseudonym ‘Michael Ford’, has written the most substantial rebuttal of the proposal to found a new Left Party – “Left U…
6 July 2013 · · 4 comments
If they come for Muslim Brotherhood in the morning....
Key link between Egyptian ruling class and American imperialism A lot of comrades in Egypt and elsewhere are saying that the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi is a victory both for the revolution a…
20 June 2013 · · 10 comments
Forward to a broad party of the left
Phil Hearse reports on the first meeting of Left Unity’s National Co-ordinating group which took place in Doncaster on Saturday June 15. This was a highly successful in preparing the ground …
29 March 2013 · · 3 comments
Future Left
Phil Hearse reviews Beyond Capitalism? by Luke Cooper and Simon Hardy (Zero Books 2012) image no longer in the archive There could hardly be a more timely book for the socialist left, facing…
16 January 2013 ·
Ten Years since the Gulf War
image no longer in the archive In the year 2000 the Project for the New American Century, a rightwing coalition of politicians, generals, business people and academics, published its keynote…
28 October 2012 · · 7 comments
History and the betrayal of radicalism
Eric Hobsbawm, the world’s best known Marxist historian has died at the age of 96. He notoriously stayed loyal to the Communist Party after the 1956 Hungarian revolution, that saw many of hi…
28 October 2011 · · 1 comment
Towards Meltdown: political realities in an era of economic collapse
image no longer in the archive Events in the last year have provided some definitive answers to debates in the left about the nature of the crisis and the future of Neoliberalism writes Phil…
16 February 2010 · · 2 comments
Resource wars and the Middle East
Phil Hearse Imperialism has always involved the theft of resources. Julius Caesar said that after his conquest of Gaul, of the 11 million inhabitants, three million had been killed and one m…
27 November 2008 ·
The Third Slump and its Consequences
Phil Hearse image no longer in the archive Ernest Mandel called the market crash and global recession of 1974-5 the ‘second slump’ (1) – the first one being of course that of the 1930s, init…