Solid Workers

Another day, another disaster for Boris Johnson. In ordinary times, the decision by the Supreme Court that determined his prorogation of parliament was unlawful and, in effect, he lied to the Queen would be career ending. The lectern should be pitched in Downing Street and Johnson is there, crying crocodile tears down the world's cameras. Alas, this is not to be. Downing Street has " leaked " its displeasure to Laura Kuenssberg, saying "We think the Supreme Court is wrong and has made a serious mistake in extending its reach to these political matters." And this is the line most of the right have taken. Despair is stalking the land tonight alright, but this time it's team leave who are left to grieve. You didn't need much in the way of legal training to note the government's case before the Supreme Court was tissue thin, and the position led by Lord Pannick on behalf of centrist celebrity much more convincing. All the government could muster was a p...

In the annals of video gaming, how many titles put you right at the end of the prequel game? A handful to be sure, and the only one parading the stage during our passage through games old and new is Super Metroid . Which is an interesting happenstance, because there are a number of mechanics it shares with another game picking up where its predecessor left off: Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap . Published in 1989 for the Master System and subsequently appearing on the Game Gear, the PC Engine (under a different name) and getting a latter day reskin for the Switch, PS4, and XBox One in 2017, in the pantheon of Sega-sourced mascots the Wonder Boy series of games have tended to get outshone by a certain other character . Nevertheless, the broad consensus among professional reviewers of the day placed Dragon's Trap the nearest the Master System had to a Super Mario game in terms of depth, making it easily one of the best games the machine had to offer. Not to be confused with ...

Owen Jones asks why are groups of hard remainers refusing to acknowledge the victory their marches, campaigning, and consistent pressure have won. If you go back to the so-called People's Vote demonstrations, many a speaker called on, nay demanded Labour ditch its ambiguous Brexit position. "Where's Jeremy Corbyn?" went the mischievous chants. Well, Jeremy Corbyn is where you wanted him: calling for a second EU referendum with an option to remain. But it's not enough, never enough. Some have moved the goal posts and now only revoking Article 50 will do. Others have vowed to never vote Labour with Corbyn as leader, even if the only discernible route to their political objective is through a Labour government. You can fantasise about the hard positioning of the Liberal Democrats winning a majority, and I can dream of winning the EuroMillions jackpot. We've spoken about Corbynphobia plenty of times . The very prospect of Jeremy Corbyn entering Number 10, if o...

For a brief, beautiful moment it appeared as if the stitcher-in-chief had become the stitched. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Jon Lansman's surprise move at Friday evening's NEC to abolish the Deputy Leader post, and therefore dump its awful incumbent fell. Overnight too many people got cold feet, were spooked by the promise of bad press, and fretted it would push more Labour MPs out of the PLP, so instead of an unexpected but welcome defenestration we got a review . And now we will have to endure another episode of wrecking when Tom Watson takes the stand for his slot on Tuesday. Is he going to thank Jeremy Corbyn for saving his bacon, or glory in a confected legend of seeing off the "hard left"? We know him too well to put the answer in any doubt. In his usual disingenuous way on Radio 4 this morning, he called on the members to decide his fate, knowing full well there is no mechanism to recall him and there being as much a chance of refreshing his mandate as, um...

More guitars for September. This is will not become a habit.

That moment when you're walking to work and remember a point you were supposed to make in last night's piece . And, perhaps, this is the most glaring error in Bolton and Pitts's Corbynism: A Critical Approach . In their book, they answer previous criticism for their being unconcerned with providing an alternative politics or strategy to Corbynism with a shrug of the shoulders and a dismissive meh. All well and good if you're interested in merely writing things and building careers as soi-disant Marxists with a neat little niche. And yet, their book is explicitly located as an intervention in strategic debates about socialism today. Remember, their argument is two-fold: the left should be in the business of defending its gains and holding the centre against the brutish, populist hordes. It's almost as if their declaration is a rhetorical flourish to try and position their critique of Corbynism from within the left for, well, marketing purposes . The second point fl...

In his recent interview on Politics Theory Other about the long-term decline of Conservatives and Conservatism, Andy Beckett suggests incuriosity about Corbyn and Corbynism is a symptom of the establishment right and establishment left's disengagement from political reality. It's a point this blog has made plenty of times . Apart from the ridiculous “explanation” favoured by sundry right wingers that a quarter of a million Trots were waiting for their moment to swarm into the Labour Party as soon as Jeremy Corbyn gave them the green light. But the claim of incuriosity does not apply across the board. Gavin Shuker recently had a go explaining Change UK's failure, an endeavour that, euphemistically speaking, left a lot to be desired. And last year we had published Corbynism: A Critical Approach by Matt Bolton and Frederick Harry Pitts, which claims to be a Marxist critique of Corbynism. For this reason alone it is worth considering. It begins, as you might expect, with an...

We've heard the declaration . The Liberal Democrats are now the unambiguous party of remain, having junked any pledge for a second referendum for an outright revocation of Article 50. Since getting wrong-footed by Labour , they had to pirouette into Brexit denialism to keep their coveted - and they believe election-winning - title of the most remain of remain parties. Obviously, I think this is wrong. Simply setting aside 17 million votes is not just anti-democratic, it's potentially dangerous. It does have one virtue, though: simplicity. As Jo Swinson has herself said multiple times in multiple interviews, it's about clarity and understanding where the LibDems stand. And yet. One LibDem MP always guaranteed to fluff her media appearance was your friend and mine, Angela Smith. Taking time out from servicing private water interests, she spoke on Victoria Derbyshire this morning . According to her, the LibDem position is still holding a second referendum on a deal versus rem...

And so the Liberal Democrats have peeled off another right wing MP. After a day heavily hinting their ranks were due to be swelled by another Labour defector, it turns out former Tory minister, Sam Gyimah. You might recall he resigned from Theresa May's front bench, and fell out of the Tory leadership contest with zero support. And following his purge during the worst week ever , he's pitched up in the LibDems. He even has the requisite homophobic creds . Reading his resignation note , you find the same crud last polished up back in February . The parties are inhabiting the fringes of political life, and there's this huge middle ground there for the taking. For Gyimah, we need to reject "polarised and divisive politics" and rise to the challenge of "bringing the centre together, through Brexit and beyond". Typical of Westminster people, he is utterly ignorant of the fact parties are responding to real divisions that actually exist, and believes they w...

What is the Conservative Party? Why, for the majority of the left it is the traditional party of Britain's ruling class. And while it has proven to be its preferred vehicle, having dominated the 20th century and holding the title of the most successful party in electoral politics anywhere , it is not and has never been the party of all the ruling class. When Marx wrote about the state as the general committee for the common affairs of the bourgeoisie, it did not necessarily follow that the Tories as a collective political entity were similarly stamped by these "common affairs". As the Conservative Party suffered its first week from hell under Boris Johnson's dubious leadership, we are reminded of the sectional character of the Tories by last week's series of not-hostile articles in the Financial Times on Corbynomics. This involved the not insignificant news of Citibank and Deutsche Bank coming out in favour of a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government over a no de...