Building Platform Socialism: Beyond the Taylor Review
An article written for New Socialist examining the future of work in the digital economy, taking the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices published in July as its starting point.
Could Preston provide a new economic model for Britain’s cities?
Could a blueprint for a self-sufficient local economy worked out by a Lancashire council struggling with poverty and austerity signpost the future for municipalities across England and Wales? An article published in CityMetric.
Hope in the suburbs: election notes from Suffolk
‘A few days after the general election was called a group of volunteers gathered under lowering skies, raindrops speckling the windows, in a small room in a community centre by a scruffy field in north Lowestoft.’ Some reflections on the General Election campaign fought in Waveney earlier this summer.
Jeremy Corbyn, ‘Holy Fool’
Jeremy Corbyn’s serene countenance during the election campaign drew frequent parallels with that of a Buddhist monk, Corbyn himself at one point referring to his efforts to attune himself to a Zen mindframe. But when watching Corbyn deliver his speech at Glastonbury last week, it occurred to me that a comparison with another spiritual archetype might be more appropriate.
Revolutionary music for a future which never came
A feature for issue 51 of The New European investigating the music of the Soviet avant-garde during the years immediately following the October Revolution.
Corbo-Futurism: Towards Manifesto 2.0
A fascinating paper published on the eve of the election offers insights into a rich seam of contemporary Labour thinking that informed significant aspects of For the Many, Not the Few, and that may find fuller expression in the next programme the party takes to the country.
Scotland’s lost architectural futures
A review of Owen Hopkins’s Lost Futures, a survey of 35 projects from across Britain, including housing estates, schools, libraries, factories, restaurants and power stations built from the 1950s to the 1970s, inspired by the remarkable resurgence of interest over the past decade in Britain’s post-war architectural heritage, a reassessment – after years of ridicule and neglect – driven by a chronic and worsening housing crisis.