This is (most of) the concluding paragraph of Geoff Payne’s The New Social Mobility, and it warrants drawing to people’s attention: The problem is that policies that would work quickly and powerfully are politically unpalatable. Resistance to reforms aiming to improve gender equality in pay and employment, especially in the higher reaches of companies, provides… Read More »
While working on my book – Health Inequalities in a Fractured Society: a Critical Realist Account (Routledge, Forthcoming) – I found it helpful to refer to Paul Mason’s Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future, published in 2015. He offers an account of how his analysis might be translated into a ‘project’ for a postcapitalist society,… Read More »
A speech I might give if I was in Jeremy Corbyn’s position … I want to take this opportunity to clarify what I and the Labour Party I lead stand for in what has become a tumultuous era for us all. First, I will spell out a set of pledges to which we are already… Read More »
As I approached retirement, my daughter Rebecca suggested I give thought to tweeting and blogging. I did, and they seemed infinitely better options than growing and entering shapely vegetables in the village show. My first blog, actually a year in advance of my leaving UCL, was on 30th October 2012. It was on what was… Read More »
Second Open Letter to Iain McNicol 10 November 2016 Dear Iain McNicol, I was if you recall suspended from the Labour Party, in the process having my vote for Jeremy Corbyn as leader cancelled. This suspension was lifted recently but I was left with an indefinite warning on my ‘file’ with regard to my future… Read More »
4 November 2016 Ref: XXXXXXXXXX Dear Mr McNicol, I received today your letter stating that my ‘administrative suspension’ from the Labour Party has been lifted and that I am ‘free to resume active membership’. You say that I was suspended following posts I ‘allegedly wrote’ on twitter, which ‘may cause offence to some Party members’.… Read More »
Dear Colleague, I found my first open letter to you a difficult but necessary one to write. It effectively challenged the way you are running our CLP. Well, things have moved on haven’t they? As you know I am currently suspended from the Labour Party for ‘naughty tweets’: my best judgement is that my offence… Read More »
Open Letter to Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party Dear Jeremy, Having rejoined the Labour Party in celebration of your election to its leadership in 2015, I was only too happy to vote for you again this year. You, John McDonnell, like-minded and loyal MPs, CLPs and hundreds of thousands of new members are… Read More »
Open Letter to Iain McNicol, General Secretary of the Labour Party Dear Iain McNicol, After over a month of repeated telephone calls and emails to the Labour Party, several assurances that I had not been purged or blocked, and three re-issues of my ballot, I was relieved to receive my ballot on Wednesday 14 September.… Read More »
Dear Colleague, I recently emailed you as secretary of our CLP to say that I would no longer be attending either branch meetings or those of the CLP. This open letter is to explain why more fully than I have been able to do in our brief email exchanges, and to raise issues that I… Read More »