All the evidence shows voters want Labour to shift to the left — but initial signs from Andy Burnham are worrying on that front, cautions DIANE ABBOTT
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Raymond Williams at 100
Described as ‘the last of the great European male revolutionary socialist intellectuals’ in his time, read him today a century after his birth and you will never see the world the same way again, writes NICK MATTHEWS
Raymond Williams with Frank Kermode, Cambridge, 1981
ANDY McDONALD MP says Labour must show it is capable of delivering real improvements in people’s lives — bold action is required
ANGUS REID and ANDREW JOHNSTONE report on an initiative that we must take this summer
ALLISON FEWTRELL on what Plaid Cymru's historic election victory means for the communities being failed by Wales’s housing crisis, and four things the new government can do right now
France Insoumise MP JEROME LEGAVRE speaks to Christophe Domec on building the Europe-wide peace movement that came together in the International Conference Against War last weekend
At last weekend’s International Conference Against War, LINDA PENTZ GUNTER talks to the Palestinian physician and politician about the struggles ahead to achieve a truly free Palestine
“AHEAD were the Black Mountains and we climbed among them, watching the steep fields end at the grey walls, beyond which the bracken and heather and whin had not yet been driven back. To the east along the ridge, stood the line of grey Norman Castles; to the west the fortress wall of the mountains.”
This is from the first paragraph of Raymond Williams’s seminal essay, Culture is Ordinary, written in 1958, his rebuttal to those at Cambridge University who saw “culture” as something to be acquired by the upper classes.
We were on a pilgrimage to see the Border Country that had shaped Raymond Williams’s worldview. We stopped for lunch at the Old Pandy Inn. Not for the pub or its excellent menu but to see what remained of Pandy railway station. It was closed in 1958 and explains why Raymond had caught the bus in his essay.
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