From The Independent:
Jon Cruddas MP & Jonathan Rutherford
The economic crisis is a turning point in the life of this country. For a brief period, history is in the public realm and ours for the making; the opportunity will not come again for generations. People are angry and they want justice. We have to rediscover our capacity for collective change.
From The Sunday Mirror:
A world away from the City banks and boardrooms there’s another credit crunch going on…
From The Guardian:
Are we heading for a political tipping point? Across mainland Europe, the centre appears to be emptying, as parties of both the ultra-right and far-left prosper. Some think the British picture is reminiscent of the dread days of the early 1980s: authorities readying for a summer of riots, predictions of unemployment topping three million, and worries about strikes. June may yet witness a watershed moment for the political class, with a breakthrough for the British National party in European elections. On top of the recession, 2009’s big story looks like being a crisis of political representation.
From The Guardian:
Archbishop Rowan Williams is right to raise larger questions about our economic predicament. The political elites of both New Labour and the Conservatives offer no economic analysis of the crisis and no political leadership. Their goal is to return the economy to business as usual. But the status quo has vanished and there is no turning back to the neoliberal model of the past.
From The Independent:
There’s a dreary nostalgia for the market-obsessed Blairism of 2001
From The Sunday Mirror:
The strikes and walkouts taking place across the country didn’t fall out of the sky. Talk to anyone in the energy or the construction industries and they’ll tell you that big engineering contractors have been recruiting foreign-only labour for years. This is about lazy employers taking the easy option and bringing in compliant, cheap labour from overseas. In the good times - with plenty of work - these facts were disguised by the health of the economy.
Well, times have changed, the music has stopped - and the Government has to step up and act today.
From The Guardian:
The wave of strikes across the country should come as no surprise. Popular anger is overcoming complacency and fear. The recession is exposing the true nature of the British economy. We are a country that has been ransacked by the free flow of capital. The strikes are not about xenophobia, they’re about large corporations and free markets that are out of control.
From The Guardian:
Over the next few months Searchlight and its HOPE not hate campaign will be gearing up to prevent the BNP from winning seats in the European elections. We anticipate mobilising thousands of activists and delivering over 2 million leaflets and newspapers in what will be the biggest and most intense anti-fascist campaign in history.
From New Statesman:
After a strong showing in Labour’s deputy leadership race, a ministerial role beckoned for Jon Cruddas but, he tells Alice O’Keeffe, he prefers to speak his mind from the back benches
From The Guardian:
David Cameron was right to call the bankers to account earlier this week. But his “day of reckoning” does little more than tinker with the problem. As the recession hits home, we need a national debate about how we build a new kind of pro-social economy.