Public Reading Rooms — The Politics of Art and Vice Versa

Latin America
30 October 2022
Today Is Brazil’s Chance to Bury Bolsonarismo

Latin America

Brazilian election: Lula set to win

Brazilian election: Lula set to win

George Orwell: class, family and birth control

George Orwell: class, family and birth control

Cliff Slaughter, 1928-2021: a life for revolution and its challenging legacy

Cliff Slaughter, 1928-2021: a life for revolution and its challenging legacy

PUBLICATIONS

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Notting Hill in the Sixties

We Make Revolution In Our Spare Time: the history and legacy of the Situationist International

Stop the War: A Snapshot

Black Lives Matter

By Public Reading Rooms

Feed Our Community – a necessary initiative

27 August 2020
One more step towards ‘death squads’ in the USA
7 July 2020
Black Lives Matter in Exeter
4 July 2020
A comment on Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech

Coronavirus

By Public Reading Rooms

We’d better be prepared: COVID-19 is here to stay – even after vaccination

4 June 2020
We are all Minneapolis
29 May 2020
The murder of George Floyd — just another day in Trump’s America
19 May 2020
Pandemic creations – links to a new world.

Brexit

By Public Reading Rooms

Brexit: myths and realities

8 July 2020
The B team Strategy
13 December 2019
Election defeat: what happened and what next?
22 November 2019
The Long Conservative Decline

Politics of Fashion

By Tansy Hoskins

Stamping out human rights and environmental abuses in the fashion business

By Tansy Hoskins

Are celebrity culture and fashion the new opium of the people?

5 January 2017
How the fashion industry is a stitch up that swindles us all
22 October 2016
Is more ‘ethical’ shopping the way to tame corporate greed and the inequalities of capitalism?

Jeremy Corbyn

By Andrew Burgin

Springtime? Welcome to the Peace and Justice Project

By Public Reading Rooms

The spinelessness of the left’s ‘leaders’ marks the final defeat of Corbynism

23 November 2019
Labour’s economic policy: the challenge ahead
2 September 2019
Mass Action Can Stop the Brexit Coup
5 August 2019
A Labour pact with the Liberal Democrats: neither possible nor desirable
12 April 2019
British Jews support Jeremy Corbyn and Labour as crucial ally in the fight against antisemitism

Rise of the Far Right

By Public Reading Rooms

Chega: the worst of the Portuguese political system now has a party

By Public Reading Rooms

Portugal’s far-right: what is Ventura’s party made of? Evangelical cults, luxury real estate and fake accounts

18 August 2020
Extreme-right escalates violence in Portugal
10 April 2020
Orbán sets the stage for dictatorship

Latin America

By Francisco Dominguez

Chile: another good-sized nail in neoliberalism’s coffin

By Francisco Dominguez

Honduras’ left-wing breakthrough

5 December 2021
Latin America: Winning self-determination, dignity and progress
27 November 2021
Elections in Honduras: The challenge of ending twelve years of neoliberalism
10 August 2021
Nicaragua: the right to live in peace
25 July 2021
Let Cuba Live! End the Embargo

Palestine

Boycott racist Israel

By Gideon Levy

Germany, shame on you for defining the BDS movement against Israel as anti-Semitic

Madonna apartheid

By Haidar Eid

Madonna: How did it feel to sing and dance so close to so much human misery and suffering?

Anti-Semitism

By Public Reading Rooms

The sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey

Jeremy Corbyn antisemite

By Public Reading Rooms

A lesson in the ruthlessness of the British ruling class

21 April 2019
Why aren’t Europeans calling Israel an apartheid state?
10 April 2019
How antisemitism is used as a weapon to weaken, stigmatise and divide the left

Climate Change

By Public Reading Rooms

COP26: why advanced countries must proportionately make the biggest cuts in carbon emissions

By Adam Dylan Hefty

Defending the environment needs social solidarity – the politics of climate looting

31 March 2019
A decade ago the banks crashed the economy; now they’re crashing the planet
15 February 2019
Why electing Jeremy Corbyn would be a big step towards solving the most political issue of our time

Islamophobia

By Public Reading Rooms

Help The World – a new organisation in Oxford

Ayesha Abbasi writes about setting up her new organisation Help The World Oxford. Asalamu alaikum and hello!

Ilhan Omar

By Matt Carr

Has US gangster-in-chief Trump publicly set up Ilhan Omar for assassination?

Music and Politics

By Public Reading Rooms

In honour of Mikis Theodorakis

By Public Reading Rooms

‘NEVER AGAIN’ anti-racist group organises at Polish Woodstock

Akala

By Akala

Akala: ‘As I grew up, I became embarrassed by my mother’s whiteness’

By Akala

By choice, Akala has never voted before. But Jeremy Corbyn has changed his mind

20 October 2016
Akala: Malcolm Said it
20 October 2016
Akala: Find No Enemy

Harry Leslie Smith

Family evicted 1937

By Harry Leslie Smith

Britain’s 21st-century housing catastrophe bears an eerie resemblance to my 1930s childhood

21 November 2018
Why Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto of equality and fairness inspires 95-year-old Harry Leslie Smith
20 November 2018
Life before the NHS: hunger, filth, fear, death
18 November 2018
If we let them, the Tories will destroy the NHS and return us to dog-eat-dog world of my youth

Media

Assange arriving at Westminster Court

By Nozomi Hayase

The indictment against Julian Assange is a war on truth and the criminalization of journalism

Society of the Spectacle

By Kenn Orphan

How social media polices thought and dampens dissent in the society of the spectacle

Michael Rosen

Michael Rosen speaking at Stand Up to Racism demonstration

By Michael Rosen

White supremacism has been around a long time, long before the horror and terror of Christchurch

Jeremy Corbyn at The Cenotaph

By Michael Rosen

The War of Corbyn’s Coat. By Michael Rosen

3 November 2018
No Pasaran – They Shall Not Pass | By Michael Rosen
6 September 2018
Why the Nation State of Israel does not mention the people who are not mentioned
15 June 2018
Michael Rosen: When fascism arrives as your friend…
11 June 2018
To control all of us, blame ‘the other’ – foreigners, immigrants, refugees

Poetry

By Public Reading Rooms

Niall McDevitt: A Conservative Grimoire

Adrian Mitchell in 1965

By Adrian Mitchell

Adrian Mitchell: To Whom It May Concern (Tell Me Lies)

10 November 2018
Have you forgotten yet? Aftermath by Siegfried Sassoon. Read by Jeremy Irons
9 November 2018
Dick Lander by Charles Causley. Read by Heathcote Williams
4 November 2018
Wilfred Owen | The old lie: dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori | Read by Sam West
12 October 2018
The Tower of Babylon. 24 lines comemmorating the 24 storeys of Grenfell. By Niall McDevitt

Heathcote Williams

Boris Johnson and migrants

By Heathcote Williams

Boris Johnson: why the man with no moral compass is unfit for public office

Royal Babylon

By Heathcote Williams

God save us from the Queen and the fetishized DNA of her royal family

20 September 2018
The reality behind bumbling, blustering ‘national treasure’ Boris Johnson
4 August 2018
Celebrating Jeremy Corbyn’s favourite poet Shelley – a poet for the many not the few
21 July 2018
Fake News and Trump the orange Fuhrer making America great again
5 July 2018
What they don’t tell us about Winston Churchill: Great Britain’s Greatest Beast

Steve Ashley

Steve Ashley

Steve Ashley - One More Thing

By Public Reading Rooms

One More Thing ‘vital’ new album by Steve Ashley: Dare to question all you see…

Music and Politics

By Steve Ashley

Another Day (for Jeremy Corbyn)

Jeremy Corbyn

By Steve Ashley

Jeremy Corbyn and Trident nuclear ships of shame

Julian Assange

Assange-no-extradition

By Public Reading Rooms

A Free Man in Belmarsh

By John Wight

The slow motion execution of Julian Assange

18 April 2019
“No one is above the law,” says Theresa May. She just has to be kidding
17 April 2019
Weapons of mass distraction: what isn’t being reported about Julian Assange
13 April 2019
Why the seven years of lies about Julian Assange will not stop now
11 April 2019
The crucifixion of Julian Assange, arrested 11 April 2019: ‘Never send to know for whom the bell tolls’
1 January 2019
Why Julian Assange should be thanked – not smeared – for Wikileaks’ service to journalism
17 December 2018
The killing of Julian Assange’s reputation is as good as killing him with a bullet in the head