Rather than hoping for the emergence of some new ‘party of the left,’ EMMA DENT COAD sees a broad alliance of local parties and community groups as a way of reviving democratic progressive politics

“THE press and politicians for the most part keep the people of this country in ignorance of the real treatment meted out to the natives,” Keir Hardie noted in 1906.
While much has changed in the intervening 119 years, this quote from the Labour Party’s first parliamentary leader remains an astute observation about much of the British media today.
The British military and their political masters are, of course, still keen to keep the often dirty and deadly reality of British foreign policy from the public. For example, in his 2021 book The Changing Of The Guard, author Simon Akam explains the British army’s “highly restrictive media policies meant that much of the fighting” during the British occupation of Iraq “went unreported.”

New releases reviewed by IAN SINCLAIR


