Walking on the Far Left

Pub. Kebab shop. Burger restaurant. Theatre. Pub. Pharmacy. Supermarket. Pub. Coffee shop chain. Pub. Convenience store. Nightclub. Kebab shop. Nightclub. These are the fourteen buildings that occupy a lively commercial street in Portsmouth city centre, and the noticeable thing about this selection is that more than half of them sell alcohol, this making it all the more easy for local people young and old to grab some alcohol to satisfy their vice. Be that groups of students off for a night out, couples young and old out on date nights, working aged men downing post-work pints of kidney failure coloured ale at the Wetherspoons on the corner, gangs of youths congregating in the square sharing vapes and cans of cheap cider, and middle aged women dressed up for a theatre trip and sipping prosecco, alcohol remains a common means of bringing people together, and allowing them to find pleasure and enjoyment away from the struggles and alienation within their working lives. However, amidst th...

Sixty years ago was the first time the streets of Notting Hill got transformed into the bold and vibrant cultural buzz for which they continue to be known for worldwide. While the appearance and environmental and demographic characteristics of this part of London have all changed over time, from a small working class migrant community amidst the broad metropolis to a stylish heavily gentrified area sought out by wealthy young international professionals, its heritage and true spirit always remain a constant and ever changing milestone in the celebration of unity, diversity and the shared fight against racism.  This fight, in the light of Professor Jason Arday's tragic death, the war and conflict within the Middle East, and the continual racial hatred and division within society through mass anger against immigration, continues to be ever more important. It is in times like these that, as the people united in hope for a fairer society and sharing in our common humanity, that we shou...

Me wearing a very punk sleeveless leather jacket covered in pin badges Characterised by its vast and broad public image, and its followers taking on their trademark alternative image and way of presenting, one may view the influence of the punk movement as being merely cultural, and lifestyle based, or use the term as an all-encompassing means of describing anything vaguely alternative, individual and outside of social norms, or that would be countering existing fashionable and cultural conformity. While this is largely accurate, there is way more to punk than just a style clothing and music, and, indeed, it would be wrong to consider oneself as punk without taking into account the political dimension of the movement, the ideology adopted by individuals involved within it, and ultimately the overlaps and clear presence of similar ideals for punk movements on both sides of the political spectrum, those movements on the right arguably having become hugely over-ruled by punk movements on ...

Flowers laid at a memorial after a Professor Jason Arday vigil I attended In the light of the tragic death of Professor Jason Arday, an academic at Cambridge University for merely existing as who he was (however the media and the establishment wants to hide this and sanitise this to normalise and make institutional racism seem more palatable), one must reflect not only on the huge loss to the university his many students he inspired and helped out on their academic journeys, but why people continue to shy away from recognising racism, slavery and Western colonialism for what they are, as opposed to glossing over and sugar coating these with falsified bias on modernisation and the influential power of the West. It is through observing this tragedy through this lens that one can further realise more clearly that the decolonisation process in regard to societies attitudes on the legacy of these aforementioned events needs to extend to education, particularly with regard to the teaching of...

In our present post-consumerist society ruled by fear of scarcity, resource disparity and the overruling interests of the elite, desperation, crisis and shocks to the global environmental and financial systems in operation are central to redefining the interests of society. These issues have come about through continual failings of economic growth and environmental destruction, the rise of capitalism and western interests, and the growth in affluence for the wealthy, and in spite of solutions to reverse these having been proposed, the urgency of the situation, as well as the fear of losing income gained to the wealthy through capitalism thus failing to support their vested interests, these have been backtracked on, with immediate and unsustainable fixes having been put into place.  development globally. For many geostrategically important nations within the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, the reasons in which they are so popular for investment in by influential Western neo-colo...

  "If Truman's broadcast turns out to be true, then I think this is the time that all of us [working on the atomic bomb] should literally cut our stomachs... the Americans have achieved a great victory over us" These were the words of Nishio Yoshio, the leader of the Imperial Japanese Army's atomic bomb project said after Harry Truman announced the dropping of a bomb on Hiroshima. While security and status within global systems of power on a military level are frequently adopted as means of furthering nations' influence as sovereign nation states and seen as means by which to preserve diplomacy and relations with other powers, through this further ability to effectively maintain control of geo-strategically important regions. However, this authoritarian and war-mongering mentality only proves to have hindered these outcomes, and only serves the interests of the already influential colonial and neo-colonial superpowers who thrive off of the abuse and exploitation o...