After Ed Miliband’s speech to #lab13, the Daily Mail published an attack on him through his father’s record, headlined “The man who hated Britain”. The ensuing fracas stimulated partly by Ed demanding a right of reply in the Mail is covered well by Tim Fenton at his Zelo Street blog and I point at a couple of articles below in this article’s postscript. The Guardian in its high minded way decides to look at Ralph Miliband’s ideas to see if they could be called hateful. The article was written by Stuart Jeffries and the language is at times both highly colloquial and exceptionally direct. It’s this article that has led me to think about his ideas. …
Hugo Chavez RIP
Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela died this week. Tariq Ali wrote an obituary in the Guardian. I remember him by posting two quotes from him. …
Ringtones & Revolution
During the recent election campaign, and one of the small left wing acts I took was to re-install “L’Internationale” on my phone. Its been the revolutionary anthem of European socialists since the Paris Commune, and is the more likely song to have been played at the Finland Station as Lenin arrived. (What? See also here…). …