GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
A capital vision
London has been a pioneer in council housing, radical local democracy and multiculturalism and a new book persuasively argues that it can be so again, says GLYN ROBBINS
(L to R) Warwick Road (Kensington) Estate saved from ‘redevelopment’ or demolition by a certificate of immunity, July 2015; Lillington Gardens a former council housing estate in Westminster is now owned and managed by CityWest Homes
[(Left) Philafrenzy and (right) Ewan Munro both Creative Commons]
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
Red Metropolis: Socialism and the Government of London
by Owen Hatherley
(Repeater Books, £10.99)
FOR anyone who’s lived in London during the last 50 years — and especially if you’ve taken an interest in its politics — Owen Hatherley’s book is unputdownable. He knows his stuff and writes so fluently that he’s made what could be a very dry subject into a page-turner.
A book about much more than the title suggests, it’s also an attempt to understand the Labour Party’s crushing December 2019 defeat and suggest some ways for the left to reform, in part inspired by London’s radical tradition.
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