Public Reading Rooms — The Politics of Art and Vice Versa

Politics
9 January 2019
Do we really need billionaires? Eight men have more wealth than poorest half of world’s population

Politics

How depraved individuals like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, rise to the top and rule over us

How depraved individuals like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, rise to the top and rule over us

Politicians and media stoking fear of migrants are taking a page out of the far-right’s handbook

Politicians and media stoking fear of migrants are taking a page out of the far-right’s handbook

Why electing Jeremy Corbyn would be a big step towards solving the most political issue of our time

Why electing Jeremy Corbyn would be a big step towards solving the most political issue of our time

No Pasaran Conference

Events

No Pasaran Conference

By Public Reading Rooms

02 March 2019 London | !No Pasaran! Confronting the Rise of the Far-Right | European Conference

London Conference bringing together activists from across Europe and beyond to discuss and organise against the rise of the far-right. Register now for ticket.

PUBLICATIONS

Transform #5: A Journal of the Radical Left

Pamphlet: Far Right on the Rise: What it is and how to fight it

Brexit Boris Johnson - From Mayor to Nightmare

Creeping Fascism: Brexit, Trump, and the Rise of the Far Right

Rosa Luxemburg: Murdered 15 January 1919

Red Rosa

By Ron Jacobs

Rosa Luxemburg: a woman both of her time and ahead of her time. Murdered 15 January 1919

Rosa Luxemburg funeral

By Journeyman

Rosa Luxemburg, murdered 15 January 1919: I was, I am, I shall be!

Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn wave

By Shaun Lawson

Is Jeremy Corbyn an unelectable liability? Or is the Labour Party under his leadership our only hope?

By Jeff Goulding

Why the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn is no longer afraid of its own shadow

12 December 2018
The establishment fear of Jeremy Corbyn: how and why Theresa May clings to power
10 December 2018
Is Jeremy Corbyn betraying young people on Brexit? What colossal nonsense
2 December 2018
When Jeremy Corbyn becomes prime minister, what should he do about the UK economy?
12 November 2018
How is Jeremy Corbyn surviving under the storm of establishment and media attacks
17 October 2018
Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Benn: character assassination goes with returning Labour to its socialist roots
1 October 2018
Why Liverpool FC fans on the Kop unfurled a banner in honour of Jeremy Corbyn

Brexit

Theresa May and Mike Harding

By Mike Harding

Two fingers to you, Theresa May, and your squalid Brexit ‘deal’, from proud citizen of nowhere Mike Harding

Rise of the Far Right

Demonstration by far-right Vox party in Spain

By Matt Carr

El Cid meets Donald Trump as fascism returns to Spain

By Terry Potter

When David Bowie and Eric Clapton flirted with the far-right and inspired an anti-fascist movement

21 December 2018
Hungarian far-right government facing warm political winter as politics change radically
13 December 2018
What the Anti-Nazi-League and Rock against Racism teach us about how to defeat the fascists
4 December 2018
Rise of the far right: we must learn from history, or be doomed to repeat it
27 October 2018
Tommy Robinson is no working class hero, he’s a peddler of far-right racist snake oil
11 October 2018
The Tommy Robinson photos show how far right the British army is, says ex-soldier
24 September 2018
How Rock Against Racism created a climate in which being racist was not acceptable

Politics

Rosa Luxemburg

By George Eaton

The afterlife of Rosa Luxemburg: how her influence endures 100 years after her death

Rosa Luxemburg

By Public Reading Rooms

A letter to Rosa Luxemburg. By John Berger

1 January 2019
Why Julian Assange should be thanked – not smeared – for Wikileaks’ service to journalism
28 December 2018
Never mind Brexit, is Britain fast becoming ripe for revolution?
26 December 2018
Slice the fruit and find the cyanide: think different about Apple Inc and the iPhone
21 December 2018
Invisible banana skins: if every racist at football was silenced stadiums would still be full of racists
17 December 2018
The killing of Julian Assange’s reputation is as good as killing him with a bullet in the head
11 December 2018
Where now for Yellow Vests and the days of rage shaking France and its ‘president of the rich’?

Julian Assange

Julian Assange and Wikileaks

By Kristinn Hrafnsson

Why is the Guardian colluding in the persecution of Julian Assange? Wikileaks responds

Julian Assange Ecuador protest

By Gareth Porter

UK and Ecuador (and The Guardian) conspire to deliver Julian Assange into Trump’s hands

27 November 2018
Breaking Julian Assange: why is the media silent about his detention and isolation from the world?
17 November 2018
Why is the US planning to charge Julian Assange with espionage? Because he has been right about everything
14 November 2018
The slow and cruel assassination of Julian Assange: we will pay dearly for our silent complicity
10 November 2018
If there is no freedom of speech for Julian Assange, there is no freedom of speech for any of us
2 November 2018
Is this the endgame with empire loyalist journalists now in overdrive smearing Julian Assange?
26 September 2018
Hold the front page for the Propaganda Blitz – how the corporate media distort reality

Media

Israel tear gas attack

By Gregory Shupak

How the media is morally bankrupt in its ‘balanced’ reporting of Israel and the Palestinians

Media in chains

By John Wight

How far has the British media been penetrated by the country’s intelligence services?

5 October 2018
Art, Truth and Politics: Harold Pinter’s legendary Nobel lecture performed by Mark Rylance
25 September 2018
How BBC series Bodyguard misrepresents Muslims and feeds Islamophobic hatred
4 September 2018
Mass media is the enemy of the people like the cage is the enemy of the bird
21 August 2018
When is a government not a government? When it’s a “regime” and ripe for “change” by the US

Harry Leslie Smith

Harry Leslie Smith

By Elizabeth Renzetti

RIP Harry Leslie Smith 1923 – 2018: “I’m going out of this world fighting”

21 November 2018
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
2 October 2018
Why I will never again wear a red poppy on Remembrance Sunday by veteran Harry Leslie Smith

Climate Change

Destroying the planet

By Matt Carr

Our last chance to save the planet as democracies swoon in the arms of fascists & demagogues

Climate Change

By Anna Kucirkova

Climate change: what it is, who is to blame, and how to reverse it

18 November 2018
You say fire, I say climate change, but what is the real cause of California’s wildfire disaster?
22 October 2018
Trapped in the climate change horror movie as just 100 companies destroy the planet to line their pockets
10 October 2018
We’ve been conned into fighting climate change as individuals when it’s corporate power destroying the planet
1 December 2016
Brexit, Trump and the most dangerous moment in human history. By Stephen Hawking

Michael Rosen

Adrian Mitchell

By Michael Rosen

Adrian Mitchell, poet, playwright, performer. Born 24 October 1932; died 20 December 2008

Jeremy Corbyn at The Cenotaph

By Michael Rosen

The War of Corbyn’s Coat. By Michael Rosen

3 November 2018
Mother Father Cable Street – 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

Adrian Mitchell in 1965

By Adrian Mitchell

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

By Public Reading Rooms

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
12 October 2018
God save us from the Queen and the fetishized DNA of her royal family
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

Music and Politics

Victor Jara Mural

By Public Reading Rooms

Victor Jara: Words by Adrian Mitchell. Sung by Christy Moore

Steve Ashley - One More Thing

By Public Reading Rooms

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

5 November 2018
Why a WW1 veteran wears a dandelion instead of a red poppy to remember the dead
4 November 2018
Billy Bragg remembers first world war veteran Will Vernon, gassed at age 19
3 October 2018
Roger Waters: champion of the Palestinian cause vs U2 political mediocrity Bono
25 September 2018
From refugee child to political artist: what makes M.I.A. so controversial?

Islamophobia

Three women wearing niqab

By Susan Ram

How what some Muslim women wear has become the cutting edge of racist ideology

By Lindsey German

How Boris Johnson opens the door to the far-right and a rag bag of racists

Palestine

Gala supporting Israeli army

By Zena Tahhan

Palestinians denounce Hollywood stars raising $60m for Israeli army terror

7 October 2018
Ahed Tamimi: what it means for child of Israeli occupation to be a symbol of Palestinian resistance
30 September 2018
Gaza’s economy collapses, and any hope of peace, but that was always Israel’s intention
20 September 2018
Israel: brainwashed, full of hatred and fear, drunk on power and self-righteousness

Heathcote Williams

Prince Charles arms merchant

By Heathcote Williams

Prince Charles: arms dealer by royal appointment to Middle East tyrants

By Heathcote Williams

The reality behind bumbling, blustering ‘national treasure’ Boris Johnson

5 July 2018
What they don’t tell us about Winston Churchill: Great Britain’s Greatest Beast
4 July 2018
Donald J. Trump: president of the US plutocratic pornocracy
1 July 2018
Bees – no human revolution has ever produced anything as good
1 July 2018
The citizen’s arrest of war criminal Tony Blair. By Heathcote Williams
21 June 2018
God save the Queen and her family as they lubricate Britain’s wars
20 June 2018
Boris Johnson: the man with no moral compass who was UK foreign minister

Steve Ashley

Music and Politics

By Steve Ashley

Another Day (for Jeremy Corbyn)

Jeremy Corbyn

By Steve Ashley

Jeremy Corbyn and Trident nuclear ships of shame

Music and Politics

By Steve Ashley

That’s Why (We Don’t Comply With Your War Cry)

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?
9 September 2016
What’s it good for? Almost nothing. The trouble with second-hand clothes
4 September 2016
Why “fashion” is just an excuse for the rich to exploit the poor