Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Idiocies that take some beating
The Paddy McGuffin column

IS there any more treacherous month in the calendar than November? The whole thing is a cornucopia of casuistry, chicanery and calumny from start to finish.

Even the weather pretends to be one thing then wildly swings to the opposite extreme in the blink of an eye.

Perhaps inspired by nature’s example, we parasitical humans have elected to cram the four weeks full of every contentious and hypocritical event going.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
21st Century Poetry / 22 July 2026
22 July 2026

by Mike Jenkins

Wilfred Willett and his seminal Birds of Britain / Pic of Willett Country Standard
History / 19 December 2025
19 December 2025

A WWI hero, renowned ornithologist, medical doctor, trade union organiser and founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain all rolled in one. MAT COWARD tells the story of a life so improbable it was once dismissed as fiction

RITUALS: Wooden crosses with poppies and names of those being remembered at the Cenotaph in Victoria Square, St Helens, Merseyside
Features / 11 November 2025
11 November 2025

WILL DRY speaks to three former members of the armed forces about the political hypocrisy surrounding Armistice Day, how war is a function of class society, and the far right’s use of militarism and nationalism to divide working people

VOX POPULI, VOX DEI: Demonstration against Israel’s war on Palestine in Frankfurt’s Willy-Brandt-Platz last year. The banner reads: ‘Stop the criminalisation of Palestinian resistance and solidarity’ / Pic: conceptphoto.info/CC
Features / 24 October 2025
24 October 2025

After NGOs and the EU, UN condemns Germany’s crackdown on Palestine Solidarity, writes LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI