Fun, fun, fun!

We're all off to Marxism this weekend. The first day of the festival will coincide with the (what's now called J30) public sector strikes. The fact that people outside, as well as inside the unions feel a sense of ownership is a little wonder, a small lesson in hegemony. The moment the organised working class begins to move the rest of the working population, everyone who stands to lose out in David Cameron's alleged Big Society, finds its champion.

The problem looming is that, while the government, employers, the city and the mass media work day-and-night to impoverish and destroy our society, unions have to jump through so many hoops to simply get to the starting block; joint strikes are organised with the same delicacy as Rolling Stones tours. There will be more strikes, large strikes, I am sure. The Left, however you choose to define it, has a job, to bring this conjunction of anti-austerity forces together into a permanent left-wing consensus.

But then you know that already, don't you? So, uh, and finally, the theme for this year's Marxism (apart from Ideas to Change the World) is Hi, I'm... as in:

Hi, I'm Hugh Manatee
Hi, I'm Eamonn Lowe
Hi, I'm Glade Pluggin
Hi, I'm Marshall Plan
Hi, I'm Jerry Mandarin
Hi, I'm Cliff Hanger

etc... Have fun.