A forum for new policy ideas inlcuding articles sent in by IWCA members and from outside the organisation.

This secton is designed to encourage debate and therefore the views contained within it are not necessarily endorsed by the IWCA.

Friedman and Pinochet: an appreciation

By Martin Joyce, February 2007

What is commonly referred to as ‘the market economy’ is, in fact, largely planned. The important questions are: Who will do the managing? For whose benefit? What will be the goals? Who will set them? How?. To these questions, the ruling classes answer ‘us, and us alone’; we answer: ‘everyone’.   [More...]

By Martin Joyce, August 2006

A look at the evidence linking ill-health to socioecomic position within developed countries and why it is now clear that to flatten the social gradient in health we will have to flatten the socioeconomic gradient that produces it.   [More...]

By Martin Joyce, August 2006

The constant refrain heard from Labour is that they are the party of the public services; that it is only Labour who can provide the hard-working taxpayer with the schools, homes and hospitals they need and deserve, with their thorough-going programme of ‘reform’.

The propaganda doesn’t match the reality. New Labour’s ‘reforms’ can’t be motivated by any desire to improve the public services, because they aren’t improving the public services. One can only conclude that New Labour is driven by the other, political consequences of these reforms: the deliberate redistribution of wealth, capital and power into the hands of the already wealthy and powerful, entirely in keeping with the neo-liberal political agenda.  [More...]

By Dave Amis, January 2006

We are living in a period where the market appears to hold sway, a time when political discussion has been reduced to the level of mere pragmatic managerialism. Yet the rhetoric of pragmatism, efficiency and other meaningless buzz words conceals profound threats to local democracy and working class political interests.  [More...]

By Paul Bakalite, July 2005

Cool and trendy? Or riddled with crime? Isn't the truth somewhere in between? Paul Bakalite argues that Brixton's recent fashionability is in itself damaging and oppressive ...

Urban renewal, gentrification and the impact on the working class in London

By Dave Amis, May 2005

The seemingly naturalised neo-liberal economic consensus is the undercurrent that informs how the processes of gentrification and urban renewal play out. Most of the existing research looks at gentrification from the perspective of the agencies charged with urban renewal and the middle class incomers who are moving into working class areas. The aim of this project is to start assessing the impact of gentrification and urban renewal on working class areas in London ...

‘Eventually values and interests merge’

By Gary O'Shea, 28 March 2005

What neo-liberalism is, where it is coming from and where it is going: Even before the unveiling of Blair's heir apparent, Alan Milburn - euphemistically described as a ‘moderniser’ - New Labour were gearing up for a fresh offensive on our democratic rights, by which we mean broad working class interests ...

For complete list of articles go to the Cutting Edge page

Main News

Click on a heading below to read article. For complete list of articles see the news section

Brown's folly

20 April 2008

Satirist Rory Bremner put it best. Describing Gordon Brown he said; “It’s like having an uncle who’s been building something in the shed at the bottom of the garden for the past ten years. You look through the window and there’s nothing there.”   [More...]

Message to all liberals - 'you're in a hole - drop the shovel!'

10 April 2008

With the local elections less than a month away, there seems to be more than a reasonable prospect that the BNP will make a breakthrough in the GLA elections in London. This should not come as too much of a surprise as immigration, often seen as a euphemism for race, has over the last decade or so, steadily climbed the rankings to near topping the table of concerns for many people.   [More...]

Has society turned its back on itself?

24 March 2008

Initially, it was a little hard to figure out what lay behind the BBC decision to commission The White Season. But when taking on board the subsequent general air of BBC defensiveness, it is probably fair to assume it hasn’t worked out exactly as planned.   [More...]

‘Working class death rates akin to arbitrary execution’

18 March 2008

During the period 1972-6, the gap in life expectancy between social classes I and V was 5.4 years for men and 4.8 years for women. By the time New Labour succeeded the Tories in government, these gaps had risen to 9.4 years and 6.3 years respectively.   [More...]

For a few dollars more—help the IWCA stand in the local elections

16 March 2008

‘FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE’

IWCA SPONSORED WALK

The Magnificent Seven will be walking across the Tabernas Desert in southern Spain (home of the spaghetti western - see picture below) to raise money for the IWCA campaign in the May local elections in Oxford and Thurrock. In Oxford in particular the IWCA is expected to face a fierce onslaught from New Labour who are determined to remove our working class representatives from the council chamber. Your support in the fight ahead is greatly appreciated.  [More...]

New Labour’s Matrix world crumbling at the edges

16 March 2008

From Tony Blair’s pronouncement that ‘we are all middle class now’, it was clear to many of us that ideologically, New Labour was living in some parallel universe.   [More...]

Poor children pay for non-doms' tax break

7 March 2008

‘ Tackling child poverty is not a "sexy" issue and poor children don't have powerful friends to lobby for them in the way that the CBI acts as the shop steward for non-doms’ writes Larry Elliot, economics editor at The Guardian.  [More...]

‘Clever bastards’ those multiculturalists

17 February 2008

OK, so it looks like Sharia law will not be incorporated into British law any time soon, but the ill-advised (although to an extent misinterpreted) lecture from the Archbishop of Canterbury recently highlights two issues we must be vigilant about.  [More...]

New Labour's cleverest trick

8 February 2008

Just recently, one of the newest batch of appointments to the Cabinet, James Purnell, a devoted Blairite, declared himself "ideologically neutral" on something or other. What Mr Purnell claims to be ideoligically ambivalent about is less important than the employment of the phrase itself.   [More...]

The re-creation of the Victorian class divide in education

6 February 2008

The Guardian reported on 1st February that 85% of white boys from poor backgrounds leave school without attaining five good GCSE’s, that “White boys in disadvantaged areas are the lowest performing group of pupils in schools after the small population of Traveller children”, whereas “nearly half of their wealthier classmates in England hit the government’s target of five GCSE’s at grades A* to C, including English and Maths.”  [More...]

For older aricles see the news section and the archives section which is accessible from there.

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A regularly updated resource providing information on national and local issues for community activists ...

‘Let us back into our pub’ say punters

Lifelong regulars barred from a historic Somers Town pub when it went upmarket have started a petition demanding to be readmitted ... (from The Camden New Journal)

Lambeth council doesn’t know how to handle itself

A local campaigner looks at recent problems besetting this south London borough...

Locals fight back against gentrification of Broadway Market

In protest against evictions, sell offs and corruption in Hackney east London, a group of locals, activists and squatters this week reoccupied a café, successfully preventing its demolition by developers. Anthony Iles reports on this unusual counter-attack against the neoliberal "regeneration" of the city ... (taken from Mute magazine)

For complete list of articles go to the Communities of Resistance page