WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
The ‘democratic economy’ that could radically transform Britain
Anyone who wants a socialist government should read a new book outlining the policies that would serve the common good, says NICK WRIGHT
Building an example: Corry Valley Community Land Trust constructing affordable homes
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
People Get Ready! Preparing for a Corbyn government
by Christine Berry and Joe Guinan
(O/R Books, £12)
THE CENTRAL thesis of this partisan programme of political action for a Corbyn government is that responses to capitalist private ownership of the economy have traditionally divided along two main lines — state socialism with ownership and control of capital held by the state and social democracy, which leaves it largely in private hands but seeks to redistribute the returns through taxation and transfers.
The book’s authors Joe Guinan and Christine Berry are the kind of policy wonks that give this necessary activity a good name. Their dissection of neoliberalism, and of New Labour’s accommodation with it, is sharply worded and perceptive.
More from this author
Holding office in local government is a poisoned chalice for a party that bases its electoral appeal around issues where it has no power whatsoever, argues NICK WRIGHT
From Gaza complicity to welfare cuts chaos, Starmer’s baggage accumulates, and voters will indeed find ‘somewhere else’ to go — to the Greens, nationalists, Lib Dems, Reform UK or a new, working-class left party, writes NICK WRIGHT
There is no doubt that Trump’s regime is a right-wing one, but the clash between the state apparatus and the national and local government is a good example of what any future left-wing formation will face here in Britain, writes NICK WRIGHT
European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde sees Trump’s many disruptions as an opportunity to challenge the dollar’s ‘exorbitant privilege’ — but greater Euro assertiveness will also mean greater warmongering and militarism, warns NICK WRIGHT
