Disaster for May, opportunity for the left
Amy Gilligan and Colin Wilson offer an initial analysis of the June 2017 election results.
‘We save people not banks’: FBU pensions fight continues
Amy Gilligan spoke to Cameron Matthews, FBU Cambridgeshire Brigade Secretary on the picket lines at Cambridge fire station about the strike and supporting victimised FBU member Ashley Brown.
Capitalism and Crisis: Why vampires shouldn’t feed on themselves
Amy Gilligan explains how the contradictions at the heart of capitalism that mean that it is an inherently unstable system, prone to crises.
What does it mean to be a revolutionary socialist in the 21st century?
Amy Gilligan and Jonas Liston introduce and reply to a discussion on “What does it mean to be a revolutionary socialist in the 21st century?” for Manchester rs21 on 15 March 2014.
Craft, gender and politics
Why would a revolutionary socialist spend time knitting? Amy Gilligan writes on craft for production and pleasure.
Review | Derailed: How to Fix Britain’s Broken Railways
Why is train travel a disaster? How can we fix it?
UCU strikes: a fighting start
Eight days of strikes got off to a confident start across sixty Higher Education institutions today.
revolutionary reflections | Perspectives on the crisis
Today the world is gripped with a sense of crisis to a degree that is as a great as in living memory. In this piece Sebastian Cooke provides a perspective on the nature of the crisis and how we should respond politically. A pdf of this piece can be accessed below: Perspectives on the crisis […]
Why is Donald Trump the president of the United States?
Amy Gilligan and Dominic Jones crunch the numbers to understand what happened in November’s election in the United States To the surprise of most observers, Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election in the United States. It is clear that an important task at the present time is to oppose his policies and the political […]
rs21 Readers and Writers recommend 2016, part 2
In the second part of our readers and writers’ reviews of art which has moved them in 2016 we present theatre, film, music and two very different novels. Railing against corporate greed and individualism: Train to Busan Mike Thompson Horror films are at their best when they look at how people deal with being in […]
Understanding the US elections – some things to read
After a period of time that seems as long as a geological eon, today is finally election day in the US. While we wait for the results to come in, Amy Gilligan and Bill Crane have collected together some articles from rs21 and comrades in the States that discuss some of the key debates that […]
Review: The Ministry of Nostalgia
Amy Gilligan reviews Owen Hatherley’s book The Ministry of Nostalgia: Consuming Austerity (Verso, 2015) The Ministry of Nostalgia is an exploration of the way a particular version of the past, particularly the austerity of the 1940s and 1950s, continues to be used under neoliberalism. This “austerity nostalgia” is typified in the ubiquitous “Keep Calm and […]
US elections: “This is going to go down as a pivotal election American history”
With only days to go before the penultimate primary elections in the US, Amy Gilligan spoke to California based journalist, writer and activist Adam Hudson How do you think that Sanders will do this week in the California primary? Sanders has a decent shot of winning California, but it’s still up in the air. His […]
Review: The Imperial Radch trilogy
Amy Gilligan reviews Ann Leckie’s series of SciFi novels, set in a post-gender galaxy. Recently I found myself racing through Anne Leckie’s excellent Imperial Radch trilogy: Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Mercy and Ancillary Sword. It’s a great SciFi series, but also quite political, addressing questions around imperialism, workers’ rights and especially gender. There is also a lot […]
A journey through utopian landscapes: Last Futures – review
Ruth Lorimer reviews Douglas Murphy’s new book Last Futures: Nature, Technology, and the End of Architecture Douglas Murphy’s Last Futures is a fascinating journey through the utopian landscapes of radical modernist architecture. Delving into plans for futuristic megastructures, plug-in cities and lunar colonies, he traces the connections between the hopes and fears of the late twentieth […]
Junior Doctors Strike: round-up from picket lines
Today Junior Doctors were on strike against changes to their contracts that will be bad for doctors, patients and the whole NHS. Despite the Tories trying to demonise the doctors, the majority of the public support their strike, and they’ve had a lots of solidarity on their picket lines. Here’s a round up from some of […]
Cuts and climate change bring floods to Rochdale
If you want to know what a warming world and climate chaos looks like then take at look at the videos of Rochdale town centre.
rs21 Readers and Writers Recommend, Part2…
What to get a friend who’s committed to the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist mode of production and its zombifying culture industry, but still deserves a present for Christmas (even if that friend is yourself)? Following on from the excellent suggestions in Part 1, there are a whole lot more great ideas below…
Over 50,000 march in London to demand climate justice ahead of COP21 summit
Nilüfer Erdem, Steve Eason, Amy Gilligan and Kate Bradley report Tens of thousands of people marched through central London this afternoon as part of global protests for climate justice, on the eve of the COP21 summit in Paris. Organisers estimate over 50,000 people took part, making it one of the largest climate demonstrations that has […]
Seventy years after Hiroshima
On 6 August 1945 the first nuclear weapon destroyed Hiroshima. Amy Gilligan recalls travelling to Japan ten years ago to mark sixty years since the horror of the atomic bombs. This week marks the 70th anniversary of the devastation of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US. In 1945 two atomic bombs were dropped, three […]
Now More Than Ever: The Story of Greater Manchester CND
As the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki approaches, Philip Gilligan reports on the inaugural screening of a film celebrating decades of anti-nuclear campaigning. Now More Than Ever: The Story of Greater Manchester CND by Hannah Ellul and Leanne Green (approx. 33 mins) had its inaugural screening at the Three Minute Theatre in Manchester’s Affleck’s […]
Ideology drives maintenance grant cut
Amy Gilligan argues that neoliberal ideology is at the heart of the Tories’ cutting of student maintenance grants A report this week from the Institute of Fiscal Studies shows that the government’s plan to scrap maintenance grants for students from the poorest households will mean that 40% of students will graduate with debts of over £53,000. […]
Hundreds of thousands march against austerity in London
Amy Gilligan reports from yesterday’s impressive anti-austerity demo. Hundreds of thousands of people marched through London from the Bank of England to Parliament Square yesterday on the “End Austerity Now” demonstration, organised by the People’s Assembly. The demonstration was so large that getting an accurate figure for the number taking part is difficult, but the organisers’ […]
Labour – what are they good for?
Amy Gilligan asks what it means for people to support Labour today and what is happening to this support? This article was originally published in the Spring 2015 issue of the rs21 magazine One of my earliest experiences of political activity was going canvassing for the Labour Party. I was, I should probably say, about […]
Scaffolding struggle: what is a revolutionary media?
Why do we write? And what for? Amy Gilligan thinks through why we use publications, and what a ‘revolutionary’ media could mean. Where there are people calling themselves revolutionaries, you can be reasonably sure that there’ll be some kind of publication. It might be a newspaper, magazine, journal, pamphlet, or these days a website. And […]
rs21 magazine Spring 2015 launches tomorrow
The Spring 2015 issue of the rs21 magazine will be launching at our event for International Women’s day 50 Shades of Struggle: Women and the New Social Movements taking place at LSE tomorrow (Wednesday 11 March, 7pm, East Building, Room E304) – get your copy at the meeting, from your local rs21 group, by subscribing or […]
Peace scarf “wraps up” MoD at anti-nuke protest
Amy Gilligan reports Thousands of people encircled the Ministry of Defence in London yesterday with a giant, pink knitted peace scarf. The “Wrap up Trident” protest was called by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) to send a message that Trident, Britain’s nuclear weapons system, must be scrapped, not replaced. MPs are set to vote on […]
8 things you need to know about the oil crash
Kate Deer, Amy Gilligan and Brian Parkin answer some of the key questions surrounding the recent crash in oil prices. Why has my petrol got much cheaper? Anyone who drives, or has passed a filling station won’t have failed to notice that petrol prices have plummeted recently. The average price in the UK for a […]
On the march against police racism and violence: report from California
Protests against police violence and racism have continued all week in America, with the biggest marches on Saturday. rs21 member Amy Gilligan reports from California. Tens of thousands of people in cities across the US took to the streets on Saturday afternoon as part of continuing protests against police killings and racism. Organisers estimated around 60,000 participated in […]
London protesters show solidarity with Ferguson, bringing traffic to a halt
Amy Gilligan reports from last night’s #LondonToFerguson rally Around 2,000 protesters – young, black and white, people of all genders, lead by women – raced through the streets of central London last night to demand justice for Michael Brown and show solidarity with demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri. The London protest came in the wake of Monday’s decision against indicting Darren Wilson, the police officer who […]