Owen Jones was interviewed by Samuel Grove for the New Left Project about the 'chav' phenomenon, the crisis of working-class representation in politics and media, and a new class politics for the 21st century.
It is our sad duty to announce the tragic loss of Clara Heyworth, marketing manager at Verso, NY and one of the founders of this website. Clara was hit by a car as she crossed a street in Brooklyn, during the early hours of last Sunday (10 July). The injuries were severe. She never regained consciousness. We lost her on Monday morning. The loss to Verso is immeasurable. Clara was a young woman with many qualities. She first came to us as Office Manager and Publicist in the London office in 2006, delighting everyone with her enthusiasm and intelligence, a knowledge of our publishing history and a no-nonsense approach to everyone, including senior staff. While her primary interest was in publicity she had very strong editorial views and intervened forcefully whenever she felt that by taking on an inappropriate manuscript Verso's standards would be diluted.
A young life so meaninglessly and prematurely truncated pains us all, but we will not forget her or her bright-eyed smile that so often lit an entire office. Our condolences go out to all those who knew her and worked with her and will miss her presence, but primarily to the two people who meant the most to her. Her mother whom she adored not just as a parent, but as a friend and mentor and to her husband, Jacob Stevens, Verso's Managing Director.
We share your pain.
Tariq Ali
On behalf of Verso Board and staff.
Tariq Ali talks to Riz Khan “One on One” for Al Jazeera about growing up in Pakistan, his student days at Oxford University and involvement in the anti-War movement, the American Empire and paths of the international left.
Visit Al Jazeera to watch the video in situ.
John Berger discusses Spinoza, drawing, Marxism, storytelling and his new book Bento's Sketchbook —"a book about looking at the actual world in which we live today, which is both horrific in many ways and also at moments incredibly beautiful" — with Gavin Esler for BBC Newsnight.
The Bristol Festival of Ideas announced today Dan Hind's The Return of the Public as the winner of its Best Book of Ideas prize, "awarded annually to the book which presents new, important and challenging ideas, and which is engaging, accessible and rigorously argued." The prize was announced as part of the sixth annual festival, which ends on 31 May. The prize, worth £7,500, is awarded in association with Arts & Business.
The Return of the Public beat five other shortlisted titles, which were: Kat Banyard's The Equality Illusion: The Truth about Women and Men Today; Ha-Joon Chang's 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism; Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences; David Shenk's The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told About Genes, Talent and Intelligence is Wrong; and Gary Younge's Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?
Andrew Kelly, festival director, said today:
The books submitted this year were of very high quality. It was difficult to select the shortlist and even harder to choose the outright winner, but, as always, it has been an exhilarating experience as well as a challenging one.
He added:
Dan Hind has emerged as a worthy successor to Nick Davies (2009) and Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson (2010). The Return of the Public offers both an analysis of and solutions to a crisis we currently face in our ability to engage in truly democratic decision making.
Specifically, Hind articulates the idea of a society that is informed by a news agenda developed by publically commissioned journalists and researchers which breaks free of the twin stranglehold of government spin and self-interested media corporations.
Visit The Return of the Public blog to read more by Dan Hind.