Home - The Social Review

Beyond the UK, History, Realities 1 hour ago

Horseshoes into Jackboots

Picture Credit: Wiki In an article supporting recent government moves to remove “anti-capitalist” literature from the school curriculum, The Times columnist Daniel Finkelstein pointed to the universal disaster which befell the dozens of countries burdened by state socialism in the 20th century. From Vietnam and Cuba through to Algeria, Angola and Yugoslavia, Finkelstein reprimands us for our failure to learn from these…

Beyond Westminster, Constitution, Ideas, Possibilities 1 hour ago

NIP it in the bud: the case against Northern independence

Picture Credit: Wiki I like to think I’m as Northern as it comes. I was born overlooking St James Park, and there’s a brick with my name on in the Stadium of Light. There’s not much better than chips and gravy, and I’ll have it with a bit of Henderson’s Relish if you’ve got it, ta. Despite being raised in Jarrow and…

Liberation, Realities 2nd January 2021

Transphobia and Antisemitism

Photo Credit: Tyler Merbler This year, accompanying Covid-19, we have witnessed a pandemic of conspiracy theories, most of them alleging the disease is a Trojan horse for an authoritarian takeover or a population-culling vaccine. Anti-lockdown protests bridge ideological divides, uniting the far-right with anti-Big Pharma types, and they exhibit how conspiracists are unlikely to believe in only one theory. A prominent Covid-19…

Column, Ideas, Miscellaneous, Possibilities, Realities 18th December 2020

Christmas Time

During this pandemic, there’s been many an invocation of Julian of Norwich. She was a Christian mystic, who lived as an anchorite – someone (usually a woman) who would wall themselves off from the world in a literal sense, with prayers for the dead being said as they were bricked into rooms adjoining churches, to meditate upon God and pray for the…

Beyond the UK, Foreign Policy, History, Realities, Reviews 13th December 2020

The Audacity of Disappointment: Barack Obama’s A Promised Land

Picture Credit: Karl-Ludwig Poggemann The President of the United States is having that recurring dream again. He finds himself on an unmarked street in an unknown neighbourhood; possibly on foot, possibly on bike, but distinctly alone regardless. The physical trappings of the office – motorcades, security details – are absent, as are the emotional weights. His decisions are no longer of consequence.…

Beyond the UK, Foreign Policy, Ideas, Possibilities, Realities, Reviews 11th December 2020

Labour’s two camps: a response to Open Labour’s foreign policy pamphlet

As was probably expected, Open Labour’s pamphlet on foreign policy, launched this week, has caused some controversy. Co-authored by Harry Pitts and Paul Thompson, the pamphlet seeks to develop a new foreign policy for Labour, breaking from the ‘two camps’ mentality and narrowly conceived ‘anti-imperialism’ of the Corbyn leadership, which Pitts and Thompson argue is unsuited to the post-Cold War world. Much…