cask ale communist

@AnsellEade In a similar way, often think Jess Phillips’ run in 2020, combined with the pledges, cleared a path for Starmer by channelling Corbynite votes in his direction, because of the perception Phillips was the right’s candidate.

This would arguably be in Burnham’s interest, so I wouldn’t discount it as a possibility.

@johnpmerrick @gavinmuellerphd There is an enormous TikTok community of London bus drivers just talking about work, for instance. They call it BusTok. Similar for other industries - you can search NHS banding grades and find tailored content for say, healthcare assistants talking about issues they face.

@gavinmuellerphd Ah i didn’t know this was a thing! I’ll have to watch some this week.

Agree, it’s a strange absence in both the UK and perhaps to a slight lesser extent the US. But lots of excellent French worker writing in recent years

if you want a taste of what the 80s were actually like at the time here's how i-D magazine summarised the postmodernism and poststructuralism debate. from its "encyclopaedia of the decade", published in 1990.

@caskalecom I agree and I’d be happy to do that! I still take communization theory seriously, and maybe more so value-form theory. But a key development is that I now think Marxists have never had a serious theory of transition (out of capitalism), and that a lot follows from that lack.

@bat020 Hah, yeah, I mean I was raised on post-punk and dance. My dad was a big Ken man (and T&G member) at the time and the highlight of his year was always Respect Festival, so I as Run DMC and De La Soul on his shoulders. I rebelled by making him take me to see Sunn O))) aged 14.

@caskalecom me & old mate from school went to see The Cure at Wembley Arena coupla years ago; mentioned to these other (slightly posh) old friends of mine, and they were like yes we went with the whole family to see them last week (teenage kids, mum, dad). digitisation dissolves Oedipus!

randomly ended up going to see this with a mate at the ICA cinema on Thursday night – Sun Ra: Do the Impossible (2025). it's available to stream in various places. hand-waving haphazard thoughts follow 🧵 ica.art/films/sun-ra-d…

An interview with @abenanav on the development of his thought over the last decade would be fascinating. It would require a worthy interlocutor, and whatever else, communisation theory more broadly is still worth taking very seriously imo.

@bat020 I get you. For my part, I first got exposed to the likes of Sun Ra as a precocious teen in the early-mid 00s; plenty of music I read about in the Wire in those days that I still only really know through imagination. It wasn’t even downloading that changed things, but YouTube.

@caskalecom yes and I ~knew~ all of that from ~reading~ books and mags, which the fashion back then. the possibility of actually listening to this stuff and getting into to it that way only emerged a decade or so later!

Everyone pointing out that this is laying on the ordinary northern bloke act a bit thick, but the choice of a Christy Moore song about Irish socialist volunteers in the Spanish Civil War as the tune that gets him pumped up for campaigning is a funny cultural sop to the left.

@AnsellEade Yeah, it’s difficult to capture because it is subjective and near impossible to quantify, but there is a significant section of the soft left who simply feel more comfortable with the Labour Right than they do with the socialist left, even if they have more in common politically.

Don’t read that, read this: anselleade.substack.com/p/labours-main…

Almost five years ago, together we began to change our Union. We took our Union 𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 - back to our reps and members. We uncovered the truth around the wrongdoing and alleged fraud surrounding the Birmingham hotel and conference centre. And we have redefined our relationship with Labour. 𝐍𝐨 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬. And together we have delivered hundreds of millions of pounds back into the pockets of members from successful disputes alone. Profiteers exposed. Cash to politicians cut. Winter fuel campaign won. Billions secured for steel. Government contracts won for British aerospace. 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞. 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐤𝐞𝐩𝐭. We are only just beginning. 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞-𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝐓𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐰𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫. To continue to win. To deliver on 𝐉𝐨𝐛𝐬. 𝐏𝐚𝐲. 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬. Workers will always be my priority. 𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮. Solidarity, Sharon ✊ ➡️ sharongraham.org

if there is an expectation that anglophone societies will be entirely homogenous - in a way they don’t expect when visiting the continent - and so any perceived minor variation to that must be explained in terms of substantial and unforeseen cultural difference. (3/3)

Actually it has been a recurrent thing among (some) visiting Australian family and friends: some minor variance with how things are at home (real or imagined), elevated to a sweeping cultural observation. It’s part narcissism of small differences, but I also wonder… (2/3)

Recently went for a roast with my visiting Australian mother in law and she said she wanted a ‘big salad’ on the side; there was a tomato salad on the menu, but not the kind she wanted, so this became ‘I guess Brits don’t eat salad’, despite having a salad in front of her 1/3

This is a fantastic piece of research from @Sachahilhorst at @Cmmonwealth on why and how the post-industrial Midlands towns of Mansfield, Corby and Coalville have shifted to the right common-wealth.org/interactive/po…

Baffling line of attack here. Labour councils haven't been attacking Unite members? Was always clear that the United Left (radicals though they pretend to be) were going to stand on Unite being a branch of the Labour Party. Graham's will again win by running for the actual GS job

Name the group.

Dwelling on their pasts is silly when both Burnham and Polanski have - to their credit - shown the capacity to be reflective and open about how their outlooks have changed, but as it goes I’d probably take a former Brownite over a Lib Dem during the Coalition / austerity years.

Exactly wrong. It's the London of oligarchs and second homes that is a gigantic misallocation of resources. Social housing is a massive part of London's greatness as a city. And there is no "economic productivity" without working class labour.

@johnpmerrick Called me a cunt on Facebook in 2016. Need to try to dig out the screenshot.

I really do think that Heartfield/Hughes is one of the funnier characters around the British left. Posh boy, son of an artist, doing prole cosplay. Always been incredibly abrasive and rude. RCP/Spiked. Went completely loopy during lockdown.

lol incredibly funny that James Heartfield is now on the Tommy Robinson demo