Changes in NUS rules have damaged the student movement
A tail of how the dry business of democratic structures can be used to limit debate, and what this means for the progressive left in the student movement – by Tim Cobbett When I was involved in the National Union of Students (NUS) as a delegate or executive officer based in Scotland in the period [...]
tours of Greece: Life and Debt in Thessaloniki
By Nick Dearden – this blog first appeared on the website of the Jubilee Debt Campaign, of which he is director. Nick is currently in Greece on a fact finding mission with people from across Europe. If you’re in Scotland, you can find out more about his travels at Rich Man’s World in Edinburgh on the [...]
Israelis offer Palestinians their votes in campaign against apartheid
Shimri Zameret, Israeli peace and democracy activist, and friend of this blog, has been in touch with the following message: “Hey everyone, we’re a group of Palestinians and Israelis, and this is our campaign for real democracy in Israel and the UN system. Essentially, it’s about Israelis giving their right to vote to Palestinians through facebook, as a protest [...]
Time to elect the BBC Trust?
Our friends over at the openDemocracy ourBeeb project yesterday published an explosive report into the failure of the BBC to cover the Health and Social Care Bill. I say explosive because it deserves to be. The report comprehensively demonstrates that the BBC totally failed to provide adequate coverage of one of the most controversial pieces [...]
How our universities were “liberated” & why New Labour’s structural reforms have failed
Having been expelled from all university committees as VPE for a protest against the university’s controversial ban on protests, I have started a series of posts on the university based on its private papers to deliver in pamphlets to the university community. This is the third of these posts, the second & first can be [...]
Deregulation of universities has led to an attack on students and the workforce.
An enormous discrepancy was revealed between the University of Birmingham’s “public narrative” on its finances and the private accounts actually used to run the university. Further it is setting up new streams for revenue in areas commonly thought of as non for profit services, exploiting childcare services amongst others. All this is being done without [...]
The fight for Better Buses means a better democracy
Patrick Harvie’s Better Buses campaign demonstrates the Green ideal of community decision-making in practice.
Why I support independence
Governments should be closer to people. I wish politicians would stop deciding to send teenagers to kill and die in foreign adventures. But if ministers are going to launch a war, they should not issue their commands from a limestone palace hundreds of miles away. There should be a good chance they know some of [...]
Calling all students, restore the right to protest.
Whatever differences of our oft dysfunctional, sometime self-destructive student “left” may have, it is nice to know that we also know exactly when it is time to unite and fight. Apparently some say we are divided, and perhaps the #ncafc tag on twitter is some evidence for this. However, this so called divided “left” including [...]
Time to take Britain out of our greatness
This guest post from Anthony Barnett was first on Our Kingdom Alex Salmond’s Hugo Young lecture, delivered yesterday evening in King’s Place, the Guardian’s headquarters, was an enjoyable affair. It was also, thanks to Tory policy and IPPR’s research, a potentially important moment – a turning point, even, in what can legitimately be called ‘this [...]
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