Catalonia

When the Catalunya independence movement made a declaration of independence, the reactions of the People’s Party led Spanish government were harsh and immediate. Today, the PSOE needs the votes of their successors to sustain their government. They are planning to pass an amnesty law, which the right wing opposition are calling an attack on the…

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Some reminiscences

I visited the People’s History Museum; I was looking for something specific on NOLS, the Labour Student organisation, in the 70’s, which I sort of found. I also found some other things, which interested me and so here are my notes …

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On (2) founding fathers

Various reading and musing has led me to the foundation of the United States, not the least, my studying of the history of Mexico. I wrote a little piece on the its founding, on my blog, interestingly called https://davelevy.info/subsidiarity-representation-and-human-rights/. I say interestingly, because the title has little to suggest it is about US governance and…

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Empire Windrush Scandal

The scandal, which broke in April 2018, saw the UK government apologise for deportation threats made to Commonwealth citizens’ children. Despite living and working in the UK for decades, many were told they were there illegally because of a lack of official paperwork.

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Comparative Advantage

Looking for Dennis Healy’s admiration for how Austria came to terms with its loss of Empire and found ‘Like Romans Becoming Italians’: Italy as the Negative Paradigm for British Decline in the Language of the Press and Denis Healey by Ettore Costa, published it seems in 2018. An interesting read, here are my notes.  i.e….

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Another Amethyst?

The Govt send HMS Defender into the Black Sea where it approached or entered Ukraine’s or Russia’s territorial waters and the Russians took some form of warning action using either artillery, naval guns and/or bombs. This is just a provocation. WTF were we doing there? …

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Gramsci in context

Martin Thomas (of the AWL) together with Peter Thomas has produced a pamphlet/book on the Life and thoughts of Gramsci.  I might read it some time, but not today. Their landing page which hosts the .pdf is called Gramsci in Context.  I also found this, from Socialist Appeal which argues that many Communists and Social…

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Magna Carta

As part of my English revolution reading, prompted by Arden’s Left Handed Liberty, I took a look at Magna Carta itself, what did it codify/concede? How relevant is it today? Here are my notes. …

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When did Capitalism start?

I have been doing some reading recently on what I considered pre-capitalist history much of which I tried to put in a class struggle context, basically about the coming of the bourgeoisie. I always felt that Capitalism came into being at the end of the 17th century but others challanged this and since I can…

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Early (English) revolutionary spirit

I am playing a game of inverse “would I lie to you” each weekend. We don’t have so many rules as the TV shows; I was considering doing one on English Revolts, but decided not to; but made some interesting discoveries, which for me reinforces the need for a debate on English History teaching. I…

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The Levellers

The Leveller’s and the mutinies. Curious as to whether there’s a battle to propose to Class Wargames, as a result of further thinking beyond my comments here.. It seems there was. Here are my notes which focus more on the politics now, rather than the military actions.

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