Imagine, for a moment, our nation’s schools as places of real enjoyment and stimulation, as proud civic institutions where all children – black, white, rich, poor, Jewish and Muslim – could be educated together. Imagine a school system free from the influence of business interests and corporate values.Utopian dreaming? The […]

The 1% solution to the economic crisis includes the prescription to work harder. The 99% caused the crisis by their insolent attitude to work and their debt-fuelled greed, now they need to recognise it’s payback time. Young people will work longer for fewer rights and it will be easier to […]

This government is about to destroy the lives of hundreds of thousands – possibly even millions – of disabled people, and hardly anyone is fighting to stop it, because they believe the government when they say, “the most vulnerable will be protected.” It is simply not true. Most of the […]

The New Year had scarcely begun before politicians of all parties were bickering over who could provide the toughest clinical assessment of those claiming jobseekers. Their proposed treatment: welfare cuts and a massive dose of workfare. What does this have to do with the Occupy movement? Everything. Workfare is another […]

Workers’ co-operatives are an anomaly. They exist within the current system while embodying its antithesis. Maybe that’s why governments have ignored them. Despite a history dating back to the Industrial Revolution and the existence of over 2,000 UK-based workers’ co-operatives, there is no legal definition of a co-op in Britain. […]

Privacy isn’t dead. But technology is changing our perception of what is private. At present, technology takes power away from the user to control their privacy – in exactly the same way as blanket CCTV does. Our biggest challenge is making people realise that their privacy is important – and […]

For decades leading up to 2011, the year of great occupations, there has been a different kind of occupation. Our collective imagination has been occupied by a lie. We have internalised the mantra of the status quo – “There Is No Alternative” – that is continually repeated, both explicitly and […]

We are What we Buy. Political Consumerism as Everyone’s Business At the heart of the global Occupy movement is the call for radical change based on a rethinking of our current system’s priorities. A central concern in this regard is to reveal the hidden economic and ecological costs of a […]

In one of Rome’s degraded suburbs, the Tufello neighbourhood, project ‘Puzzle’ was born. In areas like this one, local politicians are unable or unwilling to provide the community with basic services and leave residents to fend for themselves. The failures of institutional politics leave buildings which could provide essential services […]

It’s the giving season again. As soon as the donation bins for the “Poppy Appeal” were stored away, charities around the country began preparing for their annual Christmas fundraising campaigns. There are singing Santas, elves with collecting tins and a barrage of ads about a wide range of worthy causes. […]