This month’s issue has a number of articles about concerns for the future of the NHS. The Tories don’t like to call their plans ‘privatisation.’ They prefer ‘outsourcing.’ Having seen how that worked out during the pandemic, our writers are rightly suspicious.
The new year has carried on from where the old year left off, with Tory sleaze and corruption, rule breaking parties that have finally turned people against Boris Johnson, and a Labour Party that prefers Christian Wakeford to Jeremy Corbyn.
It is at times like these that we need some inspiration. And Jo Buchanan provides it with a tribute to a socialist who continues to inspire her, Julius Nyerere. We would like to make this a regular feature. So if you would like to contribute something or someone who inspired you to become a socialist please let us know. It could be an event, a book, a film or a person.
And they don’t have to be famous. In our most recent podcast, John Baine, aka Attila the Stockbroker, paid tribute to his parents for inspiring his politics and his career as a musician and a punk poet.
As well as inspiration we all need a break now and again. Critical Mass writers have spent the long break since our last issue on their own creative projects and writing about the books and films and computer games that are important to them. This is why we have a bumper issue again, with 24 articles.
This new year issue of Critical Mass marks a change for us. This whole project, Magazine, Podcast and Daily News items is produced entirely by volunteers and in order to keep it going we have decided to move from fortnightly to monthly editions of the magazine.
Finally, this month’s edition comes with a guest contribution from Media Lens. There is lots of good writing on the left and we are proud to share what other people are doing.
- Mizzy – The TikTok Prankster Riling up Old Racisms
- Ceasefires, hope and action.
- Immigration – Labour and Tory both play the race card
- You Tube restrict Critical Mass video
- The West Bank – increasing levels of violence bring death and terror
- Hostages and ceasefires – too little, too late
- Covid Enquiry exposes Chaos and Incompetence
- Scenes Straight Out of Hell
- News Digest
- Sunak’s proposed clampdown marks first step in Tory leadership campaign
- Supreme Court blocks PM’s Rwanda migration scheme as Braverman departs
- Gaza’s health service collapses
- Sunak’s reshuffle changes nothing
- One million march for peace
- Critical Mass launches new video
- “Do you condemn the killing of children?” and other questions journalists should be asking
- Labour Minister calls for Ceasefire but fails to vote for one.
- Over 10,000 civilians dead in Gaza and Starmer calls for a ‘Humanitarian Pause’
- Now they want to ban peace marches
- BBC Balanced Report of the Pro-Palestine March
- Current deaths: at least 15,000 Palestinians including 6,150 children; Occupied West Bank 242; Israel 1,200 (revised down) Total injured: at least 36,000 in Gaza, at least 2,750 in West Bank, at least 5,600 in Israel (figures from Al Jazeera) Hostilities are temporarily paused.
- Gaza in distress – Bolivia and other countries break ties and express condemnation of Israel
- Destitution and collapsing public services – life in 21st century Britain
- A new Nakba is threatening the West Bank
- Editorial