Part II: Arguing from values: what Labour’s centre-left can learn from the new social media landscape The first part of our interview with New Statesman political editor Stephen Bush on how social media has changed the political landscape covered the effects it had on the last two Labour leadership elections and the last general election. In part two, we discuss what the…
Part I: More in the country than in the party? How much of a difference the new social media landscape made for Corbyn in the Labour leadership elections and in 2017 The Social Review at the end of April had the chance to meet with Stephen Bush, the political editor of the New Statesman. Bush covered both Labour leadership elections after the…
Picture Credit: Wiki Autistic people aren’t allowed agency. We just aren’t, especially not when we’re young. We are “pushed” by parents and other influential adults, we are “transed” (turned transgender, because that’s a thing anti-trans activists fear), we are a “patsy” for someone else’s agenda. We are only inspiring if we don’t inspire you to change anything or do something you didn’t…
Part One: Wales Part Two: England It is impossible to discuss Scottish politics without mentioning the I word. Scotland has been part of the United Kingdom since 1707, but the rise of the independence movement over the last decade has called that into question. An occasionally fractious referendum in 2014, won by a comfortable though not crushing margin by the No campaign,…
As students around the country took to the streets to protest against climate change, one of the biggest issues we face globally, politicians and commentators took to Twitter. Not to commend young people for getting involved in politics, but to disparage, mock and belittle their efforts. Andrea Leadsom labelled them truants, apparently not thinking climate change an important enough issue to miss…
“Freedom of movement will end when we leave the European Union,” stated Labour’s 2017 manifesto – as if it was a fact of nature and not a political decision affecting millions of people. Corbyn’s strategy of deflecting attention from Brexit to focus on austerity meant that, for almost two years, this section of the manifesto largely avoided scrutiny. When the Labour Campaign…
How exactly do we conceive of housing? This is a fundamental question, and one that never quite seems to be satisfactorily answered. So often, getting housing is treated as kind of status symbol, a way of indicating success under capitalism. This issue goes to the heart of the ways in which politicians are trying to deal with the housing crisis, and the…
On September 10th last year, my friend Amaya was kidnapped from her safehouse by the paramilitary police in Leon, Nicaragua. She was taken to El Chipotle prison, notorious for human rights abuses, and transferred shortly afterwards to La Esperanza women’s prison, where she remains. A student leader in the anti-Ortega movement, she was charged with terrorism. Her trial has been delayed several…
