http://blogs.independent.co.uk| Blogs from the Independent newspaper - news, views and features from the world's most free-thinking newspaper| Wed, 22 May 2013 14:48:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2| en hourly 1 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/08/24/cold-clinical-and-sane-the-only-thing-anders-breiviks-terrorist-attack-must-change-is-far-right-racism/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/08/24/cold-clinical-and-sane-the-only-thing-anders-breiviks-terrorist-attack-must-change-is-far-right-racism/#comments Fri, 24 Aug 2012 12:07:14 +0000 Owen Jones http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=27771 Anders Breivik is a far-right terrorist, not a madman. It is a difficult verdict for some to process: here is a man who methodically shot dead dozens of idealistic teenagers, either as they ran hyperventilating or stood paralysed with terror.]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/08/24/cold-clinical-and-sane-the-only-thing-anders-breiviks-terrorist-attack-must-change-is-far-right-racism/feed/ 162 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/06/29/its-not-the-school-you-go-to-that-determines-how-well-you-do-its-the-class-system-stupid/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/06/29/its-not-the-school-you-go-to-that-determines-how-well-you-do-its-the-class-system-stupid/#comments Fri, 29 Jun 2012 10:09:06 +0000 Owen Jones http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=25805 If we’re going to improve educational results in this country, it means less of an obsessive focus on the schools – and more attention to the grotesque broader inequalities of modern British society.]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/06/29/its-not-the-school-you-go-to-that-determines-how-well-you-do-its-the-class-system-stupid/feed/ 188 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/06/22/ed-miliband-and-britains-anti-immigrant-backlash/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/06/22/ed-miliband-and-britains-anti-immigrant-backlash/#comments Fri, 22 Jun 2012 17:42:18 +0000 Owen Jones http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=25604 The politics behind Ed Miliband’s long-awaited speech on immigration are pretty straightforward. Polling – and Labour activists’ experience on the doorstep – suggest that immigration remains a big concern for large numbers of working-class voters. Unless Labour engages with a conversation going on in ‘every kitchen’, as Ed Miliband puts it, the [...]]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/06/22/ed-miliband-and-britains-anti-immigrant-backlash/feed/ 0 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/05/05/farewell-ken/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/05/05/farewell-ken/#comments Sat, 05 May 2012 22:14:10 +0000 Owen Jones http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=23916 Last night, I sat in City Hall as Ken Livingstone's political career ended; bizarrely, my parents were there as it was beginning. Back in the early 1970s, they were all members of Norwood Labour party's insurgent left, battling the party's right together following the perceived disappointments and betrayals of Harold Wilson's Government. And so began a two-pronged struggle that would mark the rest of Ken's career: against the Tories on the one hand, and the right-wing flank of his own party.]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/05/05/farewell-ken/feed/ 45 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/04/23/the-end-of-europes-right-wing-winter/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/04/23/the-end-of-europes-right-wing-winter/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:43:46 +0000 Owen Jones http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=23483 For those who hoped the biggest crisis of capitalism since the 1930s would lead to a new wave of left-wing politics, the three-and-a-half years since Lehman Brothers went under have been a depressing experience. The right dominate Europe. Neo-liberalism should have been left on the ropes by the financial catastrophe: instead, it was handed its greatest opportunity yet.]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/04/23/the-end-of-europes-right-wing-winter/feed/ 64 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/04/08/the-strange-case-of-trenton-oldfield/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/04/08/the-strange-case-of-trenton-oldfield/#comments Sun, 08 Apr 2012 13:35:13 +0000 Owen Jones http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=23052 If we're all trapped in one giant series of Big Brother, Trenton Oldfield is the latest evictee, replacing Samantha Brick on the long Walk of Shame (although it was This Morning, not Davina, that awaited the Daily Mail's lucrative offering to the lions). I'm not going to join the booing, placard-waving crowds, because there's enough posts stringing Mr Oldfield up if that's your thing. But who am I to miss out on the rash of 'so, what's the broader significance?' pieces?]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/04/08/the-strange-case-of-trenton-oldfield/feed/ 52 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/03/30/galloways-shot-across-the-bows/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/03/30/galloways-shot-across-the-bows/#comments Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:51:31 +0000 Owen Jones http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=22847 There's no love lost between many Labour activists and George Galloway: but hatred has a tendency to blind, and it is the overriding reason that a man widely ridiculed for posturing as a cat on Celebrity Big Brother is underestimated again and again.]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/03/30/galloways-shot-across-the-bows/feed/ 276