Soundings

Editorial

In spite of the financial breakdown and the miseries it has brought to so many, the main concern among the political classes - not to mention the bankers - appears to be a restoration of as much as possible of the status quo ante. This is partly because the current crisis is the result of neoliberalism collapsing under its own contradictions: there has not been a major political battle with a strongly backed alternative to challenge dominant narratives. Yet it is worth reminding ourselves that political settlements are never stable, and in the present situation the left must regroup and make every effort to offer its alternative analyses and programmes.

In this issue Mike Rustin and John Clarke discuss the conjunctural context of the current financial breakdown and political responses to it, drawing on the traditions of Gramscian analysis that were so critical to discussions of Thatcherism in the 1980s. Mark Perryman documents the inability of all the main UK parties to understand the processes set in train by devolution. Roshi Naidoo shows how the narrow instrumentalism of Labour's arts policies risks undermining the hard-won gains of black cultural activists. The participants in our discussion on climate change point to the immense gap between the change that is needed and government rhetoric. Julian Petley tells the story of New Labour's undermining of its own human rights legislation. The tragedy for the left on these and so many other issues is that the Labour Party lacks the will to push for the change that is needed.

Elsewhere in the issue, John Grahl argues that that Britain should join the EMU and simultaneously try to reform it; Andrew Sayer reflects on what a truly egalitarian policy on work would look like; Ben Carrington shows the way race is being mobilised to undermine Barack Obama's efforts to change America; Glyn Ford describes the unhelpfulness of western policy towards North Korea; and Sayeed Khan tells the story of the continuing disastrous failure of the political class in Pakistan to grasp the nettle of democratic reform.

Contents

Editorial What crisis is this? John Clarke

Reflections on the present Michael Rustin

The patriot's game Mark Perryman

Back to the future: culture and political change Roshi Naidoo

The media and climate change
Helen Bird, Max Boykoff, Mike Goodman, George Monbiot, Jo Littler

What rights? Whose responsibilities? Julian Petley

Time to join the EMU? John Grahl

The injustice of unequal work Andrew Sayer

Fear of a black president Ben Carrington

North Korea in transition Glyn Ford

Pakistan - a catharsis Sayeed Khan

12. Poems
Marianne Morris, Gabriel Gbadamosi, Luis Felipe Fabre, Eoghan Walls

13. Reviews
Bill Schwarz, Duncan Weldon, Jon Cruddas, Jonathan Rutherford

ISBN 9781907103032 paperback Winter 2009

Available online to all subscribers at www.ingentaconnect.com