’Red Pepper is the kind of rag that lights a rebellious fire under your soul and replenishes your anti-capitalist spit ducts! And I mean that as a compliment.’ Mark Thomas

Red Pepper/Philosophy Football competition
Win a 1968 t-shirt

Arts, Books, Culture

Book extract

If I Am Not for Myself: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew

Mike Marqusee on anti-semitism and the Israel lobby

In the magazine Art and politics special

Life in the art world
John Slyce and Peter Kennard debate the relationship between art and social change

Repelling borders
Melanie Friend’s ‘Border Country’ exhibition gives a voice to the voiceless

It’s the climate, stupid
Lena de Casparis speaks to Franny Armstrong and Lizzy Gillet, director and producer respectively of the Age of Stupid

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The truth is radical Ben Granger reviews The Studs Terkel Reader

Planetary mythology Soundbite science and self-help manuals would have you believe that men and women can’t communicate. Deborah Cameron’s new book shows that the real issues are to do with power, writes Romy Clark

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Deeper ways of seeing
We talk with Ken Loach and Kim Longinotto, plus Luciana Castellina tells us what we’re missing on the international cinema scene

Tony Benn reviews Michael Horovitz’s powerful new anti-war polemic, documentary filmmaker Astra Taylor shares her guerrilla tips and Michael Kustow tells us about his favourite books

Booktopia Comedian Mark Thomas on his top books

Red Pepper Review - from Karl Marx to Max Stafford-Clark, Christopher Hitchens to the Lord God Almighty, it’s all happening here!

The end of New Labour

Do the disastrous local election results across England and Wales mean the end of New Labour? Neal Lawson, chair of the left-leaning think tank and pressure group Compass, says that the strategy that fixated on a mythical middle England and denied that free market policies are having a damaging effect on society means New Labour is now finished. While Hilary Wainwright believes reviving public service values and practices is the only way to renew the Labour Party.
And Steve Platt in Goodbye to Ken mourns for a London without Livingstone

Tell us what you think in our forums

Agony Subcomandauntie

Help, advice and political correction from the woman who knows it all

Read her columns

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The Barry Amiel & Norman Melburn Trust Annual Lecture
Terry Eagleton: Socialism and culture
Thursday 5 June 2008, 7.30pm
Brunei Gallery lecture theatre, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, London WC1H 0XG

The lecture will investigate the central role culture has played in 20th-century politics, as well as within the ’war on terror’. Terry Eagleton will argue that in certain crucial respects ’culture’ is being treated as a new form of barbarism.

Tickets: £3/£2 concessions
Buy tickets

Monday night is Gramsci night at the Cock Tavern, Kilburn
Roland and Claire Muldoon’s new pub offers a friendly forum for lefties who like nothing better than good food and a drink while putting the world to rights. Join us if you’ve got the answers or if, like most of us, you’re still looking for them. And don’t miss the great comedy and entertainment nights.
Where ideas come home to roost
The Cock Tavern, 125 Kilburn High Road, London NW6 6JH Supported by Red Pepper
Further information from the Cock Tavern website

Latest Issue

April - May

Full contents

Cover story
1968: The mysterious chemistry of social change
Mike Marqusee questions the nostalgic legacy of ‘68

Dog whistles and guard dogs
The best course of action for London voters in the mayoral elections

Wrong man, wrong Europe
Susan George on Tony Blair and the Lisbon Treaty

Ecuador’s red tide
A constituent assembly debates ecological sustainability and indigenous rights

Temperature gauge
A new ‘kitemark’ suggests most carbon offset schemes are flawed but fails to address a more fundamental problem

Greens on trial
The Greens often meet with suspicion from the left. Are they given a fair hearing? Alex Nunns weighs the evidence

Redrawing the map of US politics
Could Barack Obama’s campaign for the US presidency neutralise the racist ‘southern strategy’?

Under the knife
Stewart Player and Colin Leys investigate the marketisation undermining the NHS

A red guide to Italian politics
The Italian left faces a crisis that could mean the return of Berlusconi. Hilary Wainwright reports

Up for a fight
Reforms are needed that extend women’s reproductive freedoms argues Laurie Penny

Turning up the heat on healthcare
The threat of healthcare privatisation stalks Europe

Know Your Enemy: Richard Branson
Branson believes biofuels are the answer to guilt-free flying but growing evidence points to the opposite

The troubles with food
Raj Patel explains why the world’s poorest farmers are not benefiting from soaring food prices

The new race for the poles
The UK government is claiming an area of ocean the size of Egypt in the race to secure new oil and gas supplies.

Hope in dark times
Ewa Jasiewicz talks to Kenyans trying to make peace

Full contents

From our archive
Five years ago Red Pepper published a number of articles on the Iraq war, this is a selection covering the period March to June 2003

Regime change without war
Those of us who oppose war should not allow ourselves to be seen as defenders of the status quo in the Middle East, says Mary Kaldor

Tony Blair, in the name of peace and democracy, go
Tam Dalyell on why Tony Blair should consider his position as leader of the party

No more demockery
We failed to stop the war but another world is still possible, writes Hilary Wainwright

The warfare state
Now that the fog of war has lifted, David Beetham assess the implications for British democracy

Red hot

The Long Hot Summer Party
Book your tickets now for the Red Pepper and Philosophy Football party on 13 June

NHS whistleblower speaks out
Senior mental health nurse Karen Reissmann, sacked for speaking out against NHS cuts, talks to Tom Haines-Doran

Goodbye to Ken

Steve Platt mourns for a London without Livingstone

Kinky porn becomes illegal
Next week the viewing of so called ‘extreme pornography’ is set to become illegal in the UK. Campaigners believe the legislation has been rushed through and will ciminalise millions of people

An extreme insult
Penny, from the campaigning group Backlash, argues banning extreme porn is an insult to female sexuality

Porn can be good for you
Peter Tatchell says pornography doesn’t have to be oppressive. It can be liberating and fulfilling

What do you think?

Colombia’s war in the Andes
Colombia’s long-running civil war spilled over the border to Ecuador in a raid against FARC guerrillas in March. Gerard Coffey reports on the aftermath

Italian politics dossier
A disaster for the left: discussion, information and resources around the recent Italian elections, including NEW Italy’s defeated left tries to regroup

Where next for Tibet?
China promised human rights improvements to win the Olympics but Carole Reckinger says nothing will change

Waiting for the barbarians
The so-called ‘war on terror’ has created a global bonanza for the world of commercial military suppliers, writes Red Pepper correspondent Solomon Hughes in this exclusive extract from his new book War on Terror, Inc

The Tet Offensive: 40 years on
The Tet Offensive astonished the world, changed the course of history, and remains pregnant with lessons for today, writes Mike Marqusee

Volunteer at festivals and help Red Pepper this summer
No need to sneak through the fence this year, you can get free entry by helping Red Pepper raise vital funds

Red Pepper debates

What’s wrong with paying for it?

‘I’m a woman and I have paid for sex. My decision, my choice’
Kirsty Travers explains why she sees nothing wrong in hiring a prostitute

With senior government ministers joining the call for a change in the law to prosecute men who pay for sex, Red Pepper publishes a series of articles on prostitution by sex workers, their clients and campaigners both for and against criminalisation.

Plus Not for little sister
Laurie Penny finds only middle-class male fantasy in Billie Piper’s call girl

Join the debate

Does the Green Party need a leader?

The Green Party has balloted its members on whether to appoint a leader. Rupert Read and Shahrar Ali debated the pros and cons.

Read the debate on the Red Pepper forum

Green and red

Is Green the new Red?

Peter Tatchell argues that Green is the new red, while Mary Mellor has some Red questions seeking green answers and Dave Osler says the Green Party can never become a popular front for socialism

Join the debate

Labour left

Should the left give up on Labour?

In What became of the Labour left? Alex Nunns inquires into whether there is still life in the Labour left, and in Why stay? former Labour national executive member Liz Davies asks why anyone on the left stays in the party. Further contributions from Clare Short, Jon Cruddas, Lord Chris Smith, Mark Perryman, Neal Lawson, John Nicholson, Steve Platt and others

Join the debate

Is globalisation good for you?

The nation state can no longer deliver the left’s global agenda, says Nigel Harris. Globalisation is our best hope of reducing world poverty, he says. Robin Blackburn replies with some ideas for a new system of global welfare

Join the debate

What’s wrong with porn?

The British government’s proposed Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill seeks to criminalise the possession of what it calls ‘extreme pornography.’ But is there a right or wrong type of porn?

Red Pepper website commissioned various opinions: pro and anti-porn, personal and political, addressing the question, what’s wrong with porn?

You can read the responses here and add your own views in our forum discussion

Rethinking political parties

Mainstream political parties are in decline but parties of the radical left haven’t filled the gap. In Rethinking political parties Hilary Wainwright argues we need to go back to the basic assumptions behind our ideas of leadership, knowledge and power. Mark Perryman responds in Agency for change with a set of principles for a new kind of party, while Salma Yaqoob writes about Practising what we preach. In Parties, movements and radical change Davy Jones says the left needs to seize opportunities instead of sneering from the sidelines. Others to follow.

With these essays Red Pepper launches not so much a debate as a collaborative inquiry, to be continued online and in the next issue of our print magazine.

Add your own views in our forum

Online Red Pepper debates

Anita Roddick

The redesigned Red Pepper magazine and website owe much to Anita Roddick, who died from a hepatitis C-related brain haemorrhage in September.

Tamanna Kalhar recalls meeting Anita Roddick in When Red Pepper met Anita Roddick while Anita herself writes about Hepatitis C and me in an article first published earlier this year