"People need to understand that this so-called ‘war on terror’ is not Pakistan’s war – it is the US and Britain’s. Our country is being used just like when we were used against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
The conviction last week of Steve Wright for the murder of five women in Ipswich has highlighted the violence and abuse faced by women involved in prostitution.
The government’s culture secretary Andy Burnham last week launched a high profile initiative aimed at encouraging children to get more involved in the creative arts.
When I heard last month about the government’s plans to give police more powers to stop and search, my mind flicked back to the early 1980s and all that happened in the days running up to the riots in south London on 10 and 11 April 1981 that we call the Brixton Uprising.
My new book, The Dirty South, which is out in April, deals with issues around young people today. It’s set in Brixton and deals with gun crime, alienation, peer pressure, and demonisation.
At the 1907 conference of the Second International (the organisation of European socialist parties) Rosa Luxemburg helped write a resolution committing each party to opposing its own government in a time of war.
Since Gordon Brown became prime minister in June last year it seems as if the Labour Party has lurched from one crisis to another. The crisis at Northern Rock and the funding scandals engulfing Brown’s allies are just a couple of the deep problems he faces.
It was about a week before the demonstration when I think I realised it was going to be big – at least a million.
‘I went to the demonstration with a group of people from work. We went on the "peace train" – a specially chartered train to the demo. The atmosphere was fantastic. People at work still talk about what an inspirational day it was.
The 1905 Russian Revolution started when troops massacred over 1,000 peaceful demonstrators.
It was announced last year that China had overtaken the US as the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. The statistics, which the Netherlands Environmental Assessment admitted there was "some uncertainty about", nevertheless reinforced the idea that economic growth in poorer countries is the real driver of climate change.
