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In the endless discussions about Brexit, it’s commonly assumed that the British side is weak and confused and the European Union (EU) is strong and united. The first is true, the second not so much.
Philip Hammond, the Tory chancellor, likes to present himself as a safe pair of hands. He’s nicknamed “spreadsheet Phil”. Boring maybe, but reliable. But he’s been responsible for two of the biggest media pratfalls of the present government, which is saying something.
Saudi Arabia has mostly been a stable pillar of the imperialist order in the Middle East.
Anyone who's watched Ken Burns’s flawed but absorbing documentary about the Vietnam War must have been struck by the interplay between presidential politics in Washington and the rhythm of combat in Southeast Asia.
Was the Heaton-Harris affair just a storm in a teacup? Christopher Heaton-Harris is the pro-Leave Tory whip who wrote to university vice-chancellors asking for information about “professors involved in the teaching of European affairs, with particular reference to Brexit”.
“When the first reports of serious disorders in Catalonia were reaching Madrid, the English ambassador wrote home that he saw ‘nothing in the business that is hard to settle’.”
The Brexit negotiations will probably stay stuck after this week’s meeting of the European Council.
“When one joins the civil guard, one declares civil war,” wrote the novelist Ramon Sender in 1936, the year his native Spain disintegrated into war.
On 14 September 1867 Karl Marx’s Capital, Volume I, was published in Hamburg.
The conflict is a consequence of the US decision, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, to expand Nato
Predictably enough, negotiations between the Tory government and the European Commission over the terms of Brexit are running into difficulty.
Tony Blair's latest intervention in the Brexit debate shows him to be unusually self-deluding even by his standards. He still doesn’t seem to understand that every time he opens his mouth he damages whatever cause he’s supporting.
The way forward for the left is not to defend the indefensible neoliberal EU
Whatever happens in the election, Jeremy Corbyn has earned his place in history. He did this last Friday when he didn’t flee in the face of the Tory attempts to exploit the Manchester atrocity.
Tony Cliff was born 100 years ago last weekend, on 20 May 1917. Brought up a Palestinian Jew, he came to Britain in 1946.
The press denunciations of Labour’s leaked draft manifesto have been predictable. “Corbyn’s misguided bid to turn the clock back,” spluttered the Financial Times, “Corbyn’s fantasy land”, the Mail.
Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, has of course played into Theresa May’s hands. He let his staff leak a thoroughly disparaging account of a dinner she gave for him at Downing Street to a German conservative newspaper.
The idea that a US president’s first 100 days in office should be decisive goes back to Franklin Roosevelt in 1933.
The idea of a “progressive alliance” is back in fashion. It has been supported both by Caroline Lucas of the Greens and Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish National Party (SNP).
Missiles in Syria, a mega-bomb in Afghanistan, a potential nuclear confrontation in Korea—what happened to the Donald Trump who ran as a critic of US foreign wars?