'Trainspotting': an endlessly innovative film
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Possibly the most hyped British movie ever, Trainspotting is also one of the best British movies of recent years.
Workers' Liberty 29, March 1996
The X-files: Government shields Nazi scientists' experiments on aliens
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This could be a headline in the Daily Sport or, quite plausibly, a plot for The X-files, the hugely popular imported American sci-fi TV series on BBC1. Slickly made and entertaining, it plays on every paranoid conspiracy theory and on every wildest wet dream. It is total bilge!
Quentin Tarantino: surfaces with a sting
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Four Rooms bombed with the critics, but Quentin Tarantino remains hot property. According to Paul Schrader, writer of such Martin Scorsese movies as Taxi Driver and The Last Temptation of Christ, and director of — among others — American Gigolo, and Mishima, Hollywood is desperately trying to remould its output on Tarantino-esque lines, but can’t work out what they are.
The experience of the left: the International Socialists in the early 70s
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I joined International Socialists (IS) in April 1972 and was expelled in August 1975.
Northern Ireland: Conservatives confront conservatives
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Standing back from the conflict: one of the most Conservative governments in Europe is facing one of the most conservative opposition moments. There is a strong degree of fundamentalism in the Republican movement which is utterly detached from modern left wing thinking and re-thinking.
Northern Ireland: not peace, but an imperialist offensive
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Any impartial assessment of the 18-month IRA ceasefire in Ireland would register not surprise that it has ended, but wonderment that it lasted so long. Initial British concessions — withdrawal of the troops from the urban areas, the opening of border roads, withdrawal of the radio and TV ban on Sinn Fein — gave place to the “spoiling” demands that IRA weapons be “decommissioned” before the promised all-party talks could begin.
Ireland: call a congress of Republicans and socialists
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There was always a probability that the ceasefire would break down. The British went too far and the Irish government could not provide sufficient reassurances for the IRA. It is understandable that the British want to keep the Unionists on side.
Northern Ireland: create the right atmosphere for talks
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Eighteen months Sinn Fein were able to go with others to the IRA with a package which we believed was an agreement for a ceasefire, and would create conditions whereby the British government would enter into full and meaningful negotiations, which they promised would be held within three months. They broke that promise, and went on to break a series of promises, and I think the resulting frustration, the sense of getting nowhere, were factors that contributed to the breakdown of the ceasefire.
Northern Ireland: there is no capitalist solution
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Clearly the IRA were responsible for the physical breakdown of the ceasefire. But the underlying reason for the collapse of the peace process was the intransigence of the British government — their refusal to move on the question of talks while continually shifting the goal posts.
A united Ireland is a united people
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The blame for the breakdown of the ceasefire lies, firstly, with the Provisional IRA. There can be no equivocation of any kind on that question: they carried out the Canary Wharf bombing and killed two totally innocent people.