Django's blog

Two parallel definitions of the word are used in political discussion. It's a perennial problem that radicals don't define what they're talking about when discussing class, or worse, making sweeping statements about it.

Apparently we're in an economic war. Who with, and to what end?

The Tory right, friends of chancellor George Osborne, are now arguing openly that they want Britain's living and working standards to meet Asia's.

The UK also has no qualms over disproportionate sentencing or criminal sanctions for occupational protest.

The Beecroft Report, commissioned by Cameron from one of his venture-capitalist pals and recommending the implementation of “compensated no-fault dismissal” has been released, and has caused more embarrassment than anything else for the government. But it's part of a bigger picture, with vast implications for workers.

An interesting publication recently highlighted how innovation in capitalist economies doesn't work as it says on the tin. Does this mean that resurgent social democracy is well placed to save capitalism from its own orthodoxies?

Over 80,000 people marched and rallied in Prague today in a union-organised demonstration against the government and its austerity program. It took place under the banner of "stop vládě" - "stop the government".

The leaders of all three major parties in the UK have been making the case for "reforming" British capitalism, while at the same time digging the grave of the welfare state. What's going on?

As the endgame approaches for the governments NHS "reforms", which will in effect privatise the service, Ben Goldacre has a useful survey of the "evidence" supporting reforms. Basically, there isn't any.

After almost six months of putting it off, I spent an afternoon reading over Against Nationalism recently, as well as some of the criticism published in response.

A couple of reports on the English Defence League that have been published by the think-tank Demos recently make for interesting reading.

Fear that Western countries are undergoing a process of 'Islamisation' was the main motivation of Norwegian terrorist and mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik. But it can also be seen in Melanie Phillips' columns in the Daily Mail, in bestselling books, and on the placards of the EDL. It also happens to be nonsensical.

The rightwinger allegedly responsible for the Mumbai-style massacre and bombing in Norway appears to have ties with UK-based “counter-jihad movement” the English Defence League.

There's an interesting post over on the TUC's Touchstone blog about Boris Johnson's call for strike laws to be made even more restrictive. Boris, who was elected as mayor of London on a turnout of less than 50%, wants strikes to be illegal unless the turnout is greater than 50%.

New statistics released this month have again demonstrated that errors at the DWP cost nearly twice as much as fraud by claimants.

AP have released raw footage from Saturday which appears to show a black bloc member inside a bank shouting "I'm a cop undercover" at onrushing police, who don't arrest him.

With unemployment increasing, and hundreds of thousands more jobs facing the axe as a result of the cuts, the government is setting out new ways to punish the unemployed.

A youtube video was posted yesterday which is reported to show the aftermath of the shooting of protestors involved in the widespread demonstrations in Tunisia by police.

The UK has seen a wave of high-street demonstrations under the banner of the UK uncut campaign, many of which have been organised locally following call outs distributed through the internet. The protests have seen a number of stores associated with Tax-Dodging picketed, occupied and flyered in cities and towns up and down the country.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith may well have blown his carefully-cultivated image as a 'compassionate conservative' with his recent Tebbit-esque comments arguing the jobless should 'get on the bus' and look for work. But new research by the PCS union shows that he's also completely wrong.