Home - The Social Review

Realities, Within Westminster 24 mins ago

How Boris Johnson keeps getting away with it

Picture Credit: Andrew Parsons If you ever feel dissatisfied with what’s on offer in the British party system, consider how it began. Party politics first crystallised in this country out of a fevered atmosphere of hysteria around the so-called “Popish Plot”, where a man called Titus Oates, largely forgotten now but one of the great charlatans of world history, claimed there was…

Labour Leadership, Realities, Strategy, Within Westminster 17th February 2021

No, Keir Starmer should not reshuffle Anneliese Dodds

Image Credit: Wiki No, Keir Starmer should not reshuffle Anneliese Dodds. This is a silly idea and you shouldn’t be considering it. Let’s begin with the most important fact on this whole thing: Dodds is a good shadow chancellor. To start with, she has the correct background to do it, something that many politicians don’t; she has experience as an MEP; she…

Beyond Westminster, Realities, Strategy 14th February 2021

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, Unions

I love trade unions. I really do. I’m sure we’ve all heard the clichés: we have unions to thank for weekends, working time restrictions, maternity leave, sick pay and the minimum wage. They’re clichés because they’re true. I’m a rep for my union branch, and it’s one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done. I’ve helped win concessions from employers, defended…

Culture, Miscellaneous, Realities 11th February 2021

The Definitive Social Review Guide to Trade Union Merch

If you are reading the Social Review for business or pleasure, you will surely already be aware that it’s Heart Unions Week. Trade unionism and workplace democracy are at the core of all that we do as socialists, and every day Britain’s trade unions provide vital support to workers in pretty much every industry you can think of. They offer advice and…

Beyond Westminster, Miscellaneous, Policy, Realities 11th February 2021

Great Teachers Will Never Be Enough If Children Can’t Read

Think about a child you know. How sure are you that they can read? As a secondary school teacher, I would regularly sit down with the parents of fourteen-year-olds at parents evening, and inform them that according to our software, their child had a reading age of eleven. “But I’ve heard her read fluently”, the parents would reply, aghast, “ her primary…

Beyond Westminster, Policy 6th February 2021

Marcus Rashford: Campaigning from Experience

Photo Credit For nearly a year now, Marcus Rashford has been making headlines as one of the UK’s most effective – and unlikely – campaigners. Since joining forces with food charity FareShare last March, the 23-year-old footballer has fought non-stop for constructive measures to be taken against child hunger and poverty. The last eleven months have seen him relentlessly putting pressure on…