rae-hart

4344 Articles by:

Rae Hart

Rae Deer is an economist and freelance writer.

The Last Battle for Barnoldswick

This year’s successful Rolls Royce strike brought Barnoldswick back to the headlines – but in the mid-1980s it was the site of one of the longest strikes in British history.

The Art of Everyday Life

Critic and philosopher Herbert Read was a contradictory figure – an anarchist and a knight, a lover of medieval art and industrial design – but at the centre of his work was the belief that we can all be artists.

Legalising Torture

The Overseas Operations Bill effectively decriminalises torture abroad. It’s been labelled a political reaction to a series of legal claims – but its real motivation is thoroughly ideological.

At Home in the Welfare State

Sweden’s welfare state imagined a ‘Folkhemmet,’ or People’s Home, which is now being dismantled – but individual stories help us to remember what social democracy meant to the generation that built it.

Childcare Is a Workers’ Right

In the middle of a pandemic, Royal Mail are threatening to close a nursery that cares mainly for the children of postal workers – making them choose between a £1,000-per-month hike in costs or unemployment.

Scotland’s Red Council

North Ayrshire’s council is undertaking a bold experiment in municipal socialism – pursuing transformative policies on housing, the environment and workers’ rights which point the way towards a different kind of local government.

Thatcher’s Island

Britain is going through both an identity crisis and a process of political disintegration – both of which can trace their roots to the great national project of recent decades: neoliberal reform.

The NHS on Film

The launch of the National Health Service was accompanied by ‘Your Very Good Health’ – a witty, clever and progressive public information film that helped to win support for socialised medicine.

At-Home Abortions Are a Class Issue

Last year, the government made home-use abortion pills available to all. It’s now considering going back to clinic appointments – despite the time, money, and stress that at-home pills save.

The Anti-Colonial Revolution

Radical post-colonial leaders like Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere didn’t just want independence — they wanted to break the political and economic order that kept the Global South in subjugation.

The First Metropolis to Disappear

Patrick Keiller’s classic 1994 film ‘London’ combines a left-wing critique of the development of Britain’s capital with an ambitious aesthetic – but more than 25 years later, even its version of the city seems utopian.