Our latest blogs on the state

Institutionally beyond reform
Wheeling out Cressida Dick to give the Metropolitan Police’s reaction to the conviction of two men for the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence almost 19 years ago says it all really.

Boycott the Olympic war games!
Just in case you missed yesterday's news, next year will see the inauguration of the first Military and Security Olympics. They will take place over 17 days in London and other venues around the country.

Militarized policing comes to America
The crackdown on the Wall Street occupation and similar actions around the country have prompted two authors to warn about an increasing militarization of America’s policing.

Time to sack the watchdog
Two advisors have resigned from the community group set up by the Independent Police Complaints Commission after the police killing of Mark Duggan in Tottenham last August.

Bond dealers put a price on democracy
The financial markets that have forced out the Greek government and are on the verge of bringing down Italy’s, now instinctively prefer to sideline what is left of the democratic process if it means they have a better chance of getting their money back.

State violence at Dale Farm
The reality is that the state does not hesitate to use violence, undercover agents, bugging, provocations, and other ruthless and illegal methods to enforce the rule of the few over the many and to selectively defend the laws of private property and state power as and when it chooses.

'A blank cheque for America's war state'
Ceremonies that will mark Sunday’s 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks cannot disguise the fact that the dead have been cruelly misused to justify building a militarised, surveillance state that is a greater threat to Americans than Al-Qaeda will ever be.

Punish the poor 1930s style back with a vengeance
Fake data claiming that the majority of those who took part in the recent riots had previous records is behind the government’s plans for a new, punitive regime.

Torture exposes West's hollow claims about democracy
The indictment gets longer. Still wanted over the illegal invasion of Iraq, former prime minister Blair could be open to prosecution over New Labour’s secret collaboration with the Gaddafi regime, leading international lawyer Philippe Sands has suggested.

Essex council set for ethnic cleansing at Dale Farm
Tensions are mounting as the August 31 deadline for the forced eviction of up to 400 Travelling people from their homes in Basildon, Essex draws near. Campaigners are appealing for a mass attendance at Camp Constant from tomorrow.

The state tools up for confrontation
The summonsing of social networks Facebook, Twitter and the Blackberry messenger service to the Home Office in London today is part of a growing crackdown by the state in the wake of the riots in a number of English cities.

Challenge the hate-filled state
The low level of debate at the emergency recall of Parliament underlines the yawning gulf between rulers and ruled, and the establishment’s poisonous hatred for working class youth.

The story of a riot foretold
Riots across London are a result of rising anger against the corrupt and repressive Metropolitan Police, and against the poverty and unemployment hitting the poorest first.

Met 'institutionally corrupt' says ex-spy
It’s a plum number: £260,000 a year salary, Thames-side flat, luxury car complete with chauffeur and a bullet-proof pension. And there’s a vacancy if you feel like applying.

Hacking shows state's corrupt underbelly
The News of the World phone-hacking scandal shines a spotlight on the sinister side of the tabloid media, the police and Parliament at a time when these institutions are already in crisis and increasingly discredited.

In memory of Brian Haw
A World to Win salutes the uncompromising determination of Brian Haw, who became a symbol, not only for the anti-war movement, but for the basic democratic right to demonstrate and protest. His death from cancer at only 62 robs us of an unbending voice and symbol of resistance to the state.

A one-party state for the rich
Shocked or surprised at Ed Miliband equating those struggling on benefits in the absence of jobs at decent wages with bankers and executives whose salaries resemble telephone numbers? You shouldn’t be.

Reclaim democracy now!
Just because global elites are always harping on about “democracy”, claiming it as the ideal political system, doesn’t mean that we abstain from the question. The challenge is to fight for a more advanced democracy than society has achieved so far.

Power is not a dirty word
The occupation of Puerta del Sol in Madrid and actions in other Spanish cities organised by the Real Democracy Now/M-15 movement, openly challenges the country’s economic and status quo.

A climate of suppression
Pre-emptive policing aimed at suppressing dissent and frightening people so that they will think twice about taking part in protests, is fast becoming the norm in a Britain more unequal and divided than ever before.

Big Society's sinister school policing plan
News that the government plans to involve school students in policing their playgrounds and local neighbourhoods confirms the sinister intent behind the so-called Big Society project.

Revolt heading your way sometime soon
When the wave of revolutions and resistance reaches Europe from North Africa and the Middle East, as it surely will, what happens in Britain depends on how we prepare for the eventuality.

Welcome to the market state
From welfare to market state is the name of the project that Thatcher began, Blair and Brown continued and Cameron is intent on completing. The words he uses – 'choice', 'diversity' and 'freedom' – seem harmless. But the real purpose is barely disguised.

Bigger state no answer to 'Big Society'
David Cameron’s crusade for the 'Big Society' should compel its opponents to question and reconsider the role of the state in our corporate-owned, profit-driven society. Unfortunately, it has done nothing of the kind.

The dirty hand of the state exposed
But for the exposure of police agent Mark Kennedy, there is every likelihood that six climate activists would shortly be staring at long prison sentences, framed on conspiracy charges by the state. You can be sure that no one at Scotland Yard would have given a damn.

Parliament as a dead parrot
The events in and around Parliament yesterday represent a watershed – not just for university students but for society at large. Higher education officially became a business and the present political process was shown to have less life in it than a dead parrot.

The truth behind secret diplomacy
For all Washington’s outrage at Wikileak’s publication of hundreds of thousands of hitherto secret diplomatic cables from America’s embassies around the world, they confirm much that was already known.

Game over as the Met's mask slips
Just in case any student still thinks that the police’s role ought to be to facilitate protests and demonstrations, the commissioner of the Met, Sir Paul Stephenson, has put them right. As they showed in London on Wednesday, the police as a state force have other loyalties.

The state prepares for a showdown
Rank-and-file students and their national leaders are travelling in opposite directions. At college and university level, students are preparing for further action against soaring tuition fees. At national level, the Labour-led leadership of the National Union of Students is heading for the hills.

Spooks muscle in
The result of the toner cartridge bomb plot, as with all such individual acts of terrorism, will be to further strengthen, rather than weaken, the anti-democratic arm of the state to use against its own citizens.

The great pensions robbery
Public sector workers should pay more and retire later on smaller pensions, according to former New Labour minister Lord Hutton. His proposals form part of the continuing pensions rip-off by both the state and the private sector that condemns millions to hardship in older age.

America's 'enemies within' number millions
“Imagine being among several hundred million people who wake up each day having to prove they are not a ‘terrorist’ by whatever arbitrary means the government has decided to both define the terms of such a crime.”

The disaster that is the 'war on drugs'
When the outgoing president of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), Sir Ian Gilmore, calls for an end to the state’s prohibition of drug use, acknowledging that the policy has failed abysmally, you can guess what the official reaction will be.

Petraeus deepens Obama's problems
Only a month after taking charge of US troops in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, commander of US and NATO forces, has openly challenged President Obama. Coming amidst increasing political turmoil, it is a dangerous moment for his presidency.

Public money - private profiteering
As NHS hospitals struggle to make £20 billion in cuts imposed under the previous New Labour government’s spending plans, a select group of large building contractors and developers will be smiling all the way to the bank.

When GOD spoke to Cameron and Clegg
What we learned from last night’s BBC documentary on the formation of the first peacetime coalition government for almost 80 years is that in times of crisis, the state will always step into the breach and bang heads together.

Coalition broadens its attacks
The fragile Cameron-Clegg Coalition is drawing in more forces with mad but bad schemes to help with the assault on public sector services. And they are using little known, fast-track parliamentary procedures to get their way.

Wanted: a democracy for the people
The Tory wing of the Coalition’s plans for the “Big Society”, which now include a massive shake-up of the police force, are not simply a cover for public spending cuts. They are far more sinister than that.

A law unto themselves
The decision not to bring charges in relation to the death of Ian Tomlinson following his beating by the police at the G20 demonstration on April 1, 2009 is truly shocking. But it should not be surprising.

US secret state out of control
If you think that the American state is all-knowing, all-powerful and always in control, you couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, some of the most sensitive areas of state activity are not actually under the control of federal employees at all but are in the hands of contractors answerable to shareholders.

Brutality against young people in the criminal injustice system
It’s taken five years and a determined struggle by parents and children’s rights campaigners to get the misnamed Ministry of Justice to release a secret manual used by the prison service to control young people.

A very 'public execution'
The eleventh-hour arrival of former England footballer Paul Gascoigne at the scene of the manhunt in Rothbury over the weekend certainly was bizarre. But unfortunately Gazza’s efforts at mediating a non-fatal outcome were unsuccessful. Like Raoul Moat’s brother and uncle, the footballer was turned away by the police.

Coalition prepares for showdown with unions
A massive provocation against the trade unions in the public sector is openly being prepared by the Coalition government as it prepares to force through spending cuts that will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and wreck vital services

Deprivation and inequality - New Labour's record
You didn’t have to wait for the Lib-Tory coalition for an assault to begin on living standards, health and education. All you had to do was endure years of New Labour and watch inequality rise sharply.

Derry remembers Bloody Sunday dead
Thousands of people will march into the centre of Derry today along the route that a civil rights march planned to take on 30 January 1972. This time they will be marking the publication of the Saville report into the cold-blooded shooting dead of 14 people by British paratroopers on what became Bloody Sunday.

A very British coup
The political marriage between David Cameron and Nick Clegg in a ceremony in the garden at the back of Downing Street yesterday is not simply the result of a general election that failed to produce a party with an overall majority. Britain’s first coalition government for 70 years also shows that the process that led to New Labour is still at work.

The uncertainty principle in politics
The break-up of parliamentary politics is happening right before our eyes, most dramatically shown in the resignation under pressure of Gordon Brown and the frantic moves to cobble together some sort of coalition before the money markets decide Britain is another basket case.

It's all about power
The political crisis that has erupted in Britain following the general election provides a window of opportunity to bring the most basic of questions – who rules the country and in whose interests – right to the top of the agenda.

Election crisis: markets call the shots
The hung parliament that has resulted from Britain’s inconclusive general election is certain to lead to a prolonged period of political instability slap bang in the middle of the gravest economic and financial crisis since the 1930s.

Voters in for 'the shock of their lives'
Nothing that happened during this election has persuaded us that our call on people to hang on to their votes and instead focus on building the framework for a new political democracy in Britain was mistaken. In fact, quite the opposite.

Devolution leaves power in same hands
The Scottish people have first hand experience of what it is to have greater devolution without any real power over their lives and communities.

Election deepens political crisis
The death at the weekend of writer Alan Sillitoe and the looming possibility of a hung Parliament have no direct connection. And yet looking back at Sillitoe’s writings, and reflecting on the latest twists in the election campaign, you can detect a profound shift taking place in British history.

PR is not the road to happiness
As the likelihood grows of the Lib Dems holding the balance of power in terms of seats after May 6, so does the debate about what price Nick Clegg’s party might exact for joining a New Labour or Tory-led coalition government. Centre stage is the idea of replacing the present voting system with PR or proportional representation.

A future unfair for most
Once upon a time in the 18th century, a Frenchman wrote “the style is the man”. Studying New Labour’s election manifesto published yesterday, it is wise to keep this in mind.

Privatisation by stealth set to soar
Whatever the result of the general election, private sector corporations are eagerly looking forward to getting their hands on larger and larger areas of public services as state spending comes under pressure because of the budget deficit.

History points the way
The idea of organising independently of the state in order to challenge the established political order, which we put forward in the shape of People’s Assemblies, is not new or foreign to British social history.

Staying out of the hands of the state
The flowering in the numbers of civil society, non-state organisations, groups and campaigns is the reverse side of an historic decline in participation in formal political processes in Britain and an ever-increasing alienation from existing power structures.

Hang on to your vote!
So the latest opinion polls are again pointing to a “hung” Parliament after the upcoming general election, with no single party able to form a majority government. In that event, say constitutional experts, the queen and her advisors could play a key role in deciding who is asked to form a government.

Mafia and Italian state target minorities
A Kafkaesque decree handed down by a magistrate in the town of Pesaro on the east coast of Italy has sentenced two human rights defenders, Roberto Malini and Dario Picciau to prison or payment of a heavy fine.

An open and shut case
Of course MI5 doesn’t collude in torture, as wrongly suggested in the case of Binyam Mohamed. Nor do they suppress documents. And how do we know all this to be true? Because the head of the Security Service, Jonathan Hunt, and two cabinet ministers – foreign secretary David Miliband and Home Secretary Alan Johnson – say so.

Obama waves big stick at Iran
Perhaps the most frightening aspect of Tony Blair’s appearance before the exceptionally tame Iraq war inquiry was his pointed remarks about Iran being next in line for military action. And it seems it was more than the usual Blair “I’d do it again” bravado and that his connections to the White House are as strong as when he was prime minister.

Time for 'regime change' in Britain
Whatever Tony Blair says or doesn’t say at the Iraq inquiry will not alter the historical record. Blair and George W. Bush went to war on a pretext, pursuing regime change in Baghdad behind the smokescreen of weapons of mass destruction that existed in imagination only.

Not a crime to seek asylum
An early campaigner for women’s rights, philosopher John Stuart Mill argued 141 years ago that the treatment of women was the measure of any society’s civilisation. By that measure, today’s Britain is a sorry place, as campaigners against the brutal treatment of female asylum seekers, the most vulnerable women in the world, have documented.

Political crisis gathers momentum
The first thing to say about the divisions within New Labour over Gordon Brown’s leadership is that there are no principles involved on any side of the civil war that rumbles on at Westminster. All the plotters without exception are concerned about one thing above all other considerations – their political futures.

Ending the 'war on terror'
So now air passengers will be subjected to the equivalent of a strip search as the futile “war on terror” enters its second decade. The next step, surely, is to get travellers to leave all their clothes in a bag and fly in a bathrobe. This is how absurd the world has become, with no solution in sight.