For May Day 🌹 and ahead of tomorrow’s local elections, I talk with Matthew Brown for Renewal about municipal socialism and the past, present and future of the Preston Model. #CWB Community Wealth Building

renewal.org.uk/the-road-to-mu…

What can you say? I used to teach in this building. Solidarity with the extraordinary, brave Columbia students and the faculty defending them. Infinite shame on the administrators who have signed off on this brutality. Free Palestine. x.com/BenjAlvarez1/s…

How much more graphic does the symbolism have to get!

Thanks to Renewal and Martin O'Neill for this wide ranging new interview on the progress of Community Wealth Building in Preston and beyond.

On May Day, and the eve of local elections Preston Labour are committed to deepen the #PrestonModel to enpower working people 🌹.

Ahead of tomorrow's local elections, Martin O'Neill talks to Preston's Matthew Brown about the past, present and future of community wealth building - in Preston & beyond.
renewal.org.uk/the-road-to-mu…

“Labour talks about devolving power, but then acts with extreme control freakery. The very act of blocking Driscoll (without a clear rationale or explanation) demonstrates a taste for centralisation & a lack of respect for pluralism, democracy & local decision-making.” (2/4)

“Labour’s candidate Kim McGuinness says that she wants to be judged as mayor on reducing child poverty but is stuck as the candidate of a party that backs the two-child benefit limit, which has sent over 250,000 children into absolute poverty.” (3/4)

Unwinding neoliberalism means recovering some of the things we have collectively unlearned. Responding to the climate crisis is going to require far greater regional economic planning.

This footage of dozens of armed police in riot gear raiding an academic office in Columbia piled high with books is going to be playing as b-roll in my mind for weeks. x.com/prem_thakker/s…

And here you can see officers entering an academic building with their weapons drawn, in response to college students protesting their tax & tuition dollars contributing to a plausible genocide

This image will be in the history books and the people who authorized or cheered it on are going to look like shit.

This is down the street from where I lived for seven years while working on my PhD at Columbia. A slightly grotty, interesting, fun neighborhood turned by our cowardly and corrupt leaders into a militarized zone where student protesters are brutalized and treated like criminals.

Summers deplores the Palestinian flag as in itself an anti-semitic symbol.
Biden condemns use of a standard Arabic phrase ...
And what triggers this derangement are campus protests not events in Palestine.
Dem establishment are completely losing their minds.

Professor Sir Michael Marmot, Director of UCL’s Institute of Health Equity:

“Britain is a poor, sick country, getting sicker, with a few rich and healthy people; the results of a dismal failure of central government policies since 2010.”

news.sky.com/story/poorer-p…

Good piece on Mayor Jamie Driscoll’s campaign for #NorthEastMayor from two people I respect a lot - Joe Guinan & Martin O'Neill: “Driscoll’s maverick challenge … gives a sense of what will likely happen to politics after disappointment with Starmerism sets in” tribunemag.co.uk/2024/04/jamie-… (1/4)

While the Tories will receive a drubbing in this week’s local elections, Jamie Driscoll’s North East mayoral candidacy has captured much attention — and highlighted Labour's future electoral headaches, should Starmerism disappoint.

tribunemag.co.uk/2024/04/jamie-…

Today locked out of offices. Not just a place of work but the place we define by our teaching and research without which it is literally nothing more than a bunch of badly managed assets and a hospital.

“The political class can only radically constrain democratic choice for so long before generating a backlash. ⁦Mayor Jamie Driscoll’s⁩ simple message of wanting to make things better for ordinary people can be seen as the shape of politics to come.” tribunemag.co.uk/2024/04/jamie-…

For Tribune, Joe Guinan & I have written about the significance of Jamie Driscoll’s challenge to Labour for the North-East mayoralty, and how his campaign could be a harbinger of conflicts to come on inequality, devolution, and climate policy.

tribunemag.co.uk/2024/04/jamie-…

For Tribune, Joe Guinan and Martin O'Neill analyze the significance of Britain’s upcoming local elections and the independent candidacy of Community Wealth Builder Mayor Jamie Driscoll for North East Mayor.