Latest editorial
Nothing, says ANDY HEDGECOCK, can rescue this undistinguished amalgam of ponderous melodrama and shallow philosophical speculation
How local democracy is being taken from us
Who Stole the Town Hall? exposes the brutal neoliberal attack on councils says ANDY HEDGECOCK, and it underlines the need for socialist decentralisation serving the people, not profiteers
JAMIE BRITTON invites readers to visit 3,500 locals as part of a marathon artistic pub crawl
JOHN GREEN welcomes a valuable and incisive analysis of a world become hyperpolitical but without the mass movement institutions to represent it
JAMES WALSH is moved by a provocative and original take on the relationship between ecology and architecture, and a plea to work with, not against, the materials and minerals of our world
An immersive, participatory display by a queer Australian Aboriginal performer, and a rebellious unravelling of traditional Scottish dance
Who Stole the Town Hall? The End of Local Government As We Know It by Peter Latham (Policy Press, £12.99)
WITH startling clarity, Peter Latham exposes the moral bankruptcy of neoliberalism and the risks it poses to all of us in Who Stole the Town Hall?, which deconstructs the government’s strategy of dressing self-serving centralisation in the clothes of “localism.”
It considers too the perilous state of public services and the corrosive impact of outsourcing, with Latham’s central argument summarised in a hard-hitting introduction by Rodney Bickerstaffe, former general secretary of Unison.
Similar stories
The question is not simply how much we spend on defence, but what we understand defence and security to mean, says SIMON BRIGNELL
IAN LAVERY MP warns that decades of neoliberal policies have left former industrial communities behind — but a renewed Labour commitment to working people could change the political landscape
Only an ambitious programme of state-led investment can restore growth and improve living standards, argues MICHAEL BURKE
LOTTE COLLETT welcomes the arrival of a new party for the left, a vehicle for councils to finally fight for progressive policies on housing, green spaces and public facilities, rather than administering cuts and misery from central government